European Markets Down; Asian Stocks Falls on North Korea Nuclear Test

London (Sept 9)  European markets fell in early trading, following Asian markets down after reports emerged that North Korea had tested a nuclear weapon.

Futures pointed to U.S. markets opening down with the Dow Jones Industrial Average mini futures down 0.12% and the S&P 500 mini futures losing 0.07%.

Oil was also down in early trading, West Test Intermediate was down 1.07% at $47.11 and Brent Crude lost 1.10% at $49.44.

In London, the FTSE 100 was recently down 0.23% at 6,843.19.

In Frankfurt, the Dax was down 0.31% at 10,642.20 and the Cac 40 lost 0.26% to 4,530.17 in early trading in Paris.

Luxury goods were down in morning trading with Burberry (BURBY) losing 1.95% in London and LVMH (LVMUY) losing 0.65% in Paris.

Italian banks were down in morning trading. Monte dei Paschi (BMDPY)  fell as much as 1% after the bank's CEO Fabrizio Viola unexpectedly resigned last night. The bank is in the middle of a turnaround that involves selling €28 billion ($31.5 billion) in bad loans and a €5 billion ($5.6 billion) cash call to cover the losses from the loans.

Unicredit had lost as much as 1.6% in morning trading after reports suggested the bank was considering selling it Pioneer Investment branch as part of a €10 billion capital increase exercise.

Markets in Asia were rocked by a nuclear test in North Korea. This was the fifth and most powerful test done by the regime. Markets fell on reports of the test.

Source: TheStreet