The stock market news over the past few days has been awash with coverage of the perceived low point to which the FTSE 100 index in the United Kingdom has fallen recently.
At the close of trading on the London session on Friday last week, the FTSE 100, which is the index consisting of the 100 most prestigious blue-chip stocks of publicly listed companies on the London Stock Exchange, sat at 7,427.31 points.
The overall view is that this close places it ‘firmly in the red’, which is certainly the case when looking at the past week in which, aside from a very sudden dip to 7,412 on Wednesday before a quick rebound, this close represents a 123 point downturn over the five day moving average.
Commentary on the FTSE 100’s current situation is generally centered around reports on the continual increase in inflation across many Western markets, and some conclusions are being drawn that activity across the Atlantic in the United States has had some negative effect as markets digest the Fed’s response to rising inflation at the Jackson Hole central bank meet.
However, the whilst there is certainly a current dip over the short term in the buoyancy of the FTSE 100 index, when looking over a six month period, a different picture emerges.
At the beginning of August, just three weeks ago, the FTSE 100 index was trading at 7,409 which is considerably lower than the close on Friday last week which has drawn so much attention.
Back in March, it was down to 6,959 which is a transgression of the 7,000 mark which the FTSE 100 index has been trading above since the middle of 2021 when it rallied and all eyes were focused on the 7,000 point value which was a milestone.
In the middle of 2021, there were schools of thought which considered that thee FTSE 100 could sustain a move higher than the 7,000 mark due to the inflows from foreign investors. Ever since Brexit in 2016, there has been a reluctance of foreign investors (private and institutional) to allocate money towards the FTSE 100 and other UK assets. The reduction in uncertainty had been helped by the Brexit deal in late 2020.
Therefore, when considering the overall situation which surrounds the value of the FTSE 100 index, there is certainly a fair amount of volatility, and certain industry sectors which have a number of companies listed on the FTSE 100 index such as the airline industry, have been experiencing a significant amount of disruption recently, however the overall picture over a longer term does not look anywhere near as gloomy as the current mood suggests.
What it does show is that volatility has been sustained in the usually steady index and has been present for quite some time now.
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