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More talk from the Obama administration yesterday saw equity markets and sentiment plummet worldwide, US and Asian markets giving up the most, while riskier currencies generally also shed some strength as the dollar and Yen remained strong. 

Obama’s plans are to impose restrictions on the ownership and investment that banks have in hedge funds involved in proprietary trading; a lucrative area for the banks in terms of profits. This restriction on the financial freedom of the banks was seen a negative the FTSE fell over 1.75%, the Dow also giving up over 2% for the worst fall since October. 

Figures from China revealing a rate of growth of almost 11% in the last quarter, and inflation rising to nearly 1.9% also saw investors worried that the region would begin to raise interest rates to try and steady the economies breakneck expansion.

It wasn’t just political action from the US that was driving the market, US leading indicators arrived slightly better than expected, while initial jobless claims arrived slightly worse than expected.

Today sees retail sales from the UK arriving at 9:30, while the European Union has new industrial orders at 10:00. Consensus for the important December reading of retail sales is 1.2% increase.

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