Market Buzz: What's new from EU?

Analysts believe news from the West, notably the US Fed decision on future monetary policy and the EU summit on the refinancing of Greek debt, will determine the course of the markets this week.

“If the news will be positive, the market will continue to grow, with RTS index reaching 1620 points over the week. If not, it can slide to 1350-1420points,”says Alexandra Lozovaya from Vector Securities.“The Russian markets are likely to follow the trend of Western markets on Monday. The EU summit will define the tendency for the coming week,” says Vasiliy Lyakh, an expert from the Moscow Stock Center.Despite positive macroeconomic data from Germany, Great Britain and USA, the markets were set to continue a downward correction as investors’ expectations stay negative for the coming week says Elena Kozhukhova from Aton.“This week the markets are expected to trade sideways, making up for a middle term trend. A set of events such as the EU summit and the US FED Reserve meeting during this week, with important announcements to be made, will be the main leverages for the markets defining investor mood which is likely to result in continued volatility. However, the general mood is still positive,” the analyst says.By midday on Friday, the core Russian indices had reached their maximum, tapping 1500 points and sliding later at the end of the trading session. After four days trading in the black, MICEX slumped to 1491.15 – a 0.83% downgrade from the opening, while RTS has lost 0.50%, sinking to 1496.4 by the end of the session. The evening trade result was even more discouraging, with indices going into the red.Since the political situation related to Iran oil sanctions is still uncertain and Greek debt issue remain unresolved, the European markets closed in the red with the British FTSE 100 going down 0.1%, the German DAX losing 0,3% and the French CAC 40 also down by 0.6% by the end of Friday’s trading session. US stock indices closed sideways on Friday. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones were both up, while Nasdaq Composite dropped by 0.06% to 2786.70 points. Strong quarterly reports of American Express, Intel and IBM were supporting the markets but the weak data on home sales on the US secondary market restrained average growth.