Italian and Spainsh markets down 4% and 3.7% with all eyes firmly on the continent for Thursday's EU meeting
Markets across Europe closed down today as fears that Thursday and Friday's EU summit will achieve the same outcomes as previous ones – very little.
Cyprus applied for an EU bailout, and the finance minister of Greece resigned due to ill health less than a week into the job.
Italian and Spanish bonds were both up 21bps and 28bps respectively, with Italy's 10 year hitting 6%.
Italy had a particularly tough day, as its FTSE MIB closed down 549 points, 4%, at 13114.
Markets in Spain was down 3.7%, France down 2.2% and Germany down 2.1%.
The FTSE 100 performed best (or the least worst), closing down 63 points, 1.1%, at 5451.
So, little interest seems to have been paid to the equities and stock picking has fallen in favour to watching the eurozone self-implode.
Biggest faller on the main index was pharmaceutical company Shire after its second best-selling drug will now get a generic competitor – shares closed down 223p, 11.3%, at £17.40.
Oil companies also suffered in the heat today, but not because a barrel of Brent crude finest is now worth $90.23, down 0.8% on the day.
Valiant Petroleum (down 23.8p, 6.2%, at 356.5p), Premier Oil (down 16.2p, 4.8%, at 326.8p) and Ithaca (down 14.5p, 13.2%, at 110p) all reported problems out in the, er, field.
Valiant found no gas in its latest drilling location and will abandon it.
Premier Oil's north sea oil drilling suffered a setback as its Coaster well turned out to be dry.
While Ithaca said only three of the four wells at its Athena field in the North Sea are flowing due to a blockage, stopping 5,000 barrels a day being released.
Bring on tomorrow.
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