After a furious rally in Asia, European stocks opened flat. It may be the stock rise that swept the globe due to central bank easing has ended. Poor China PMI may have dampened the rise.
The Hang Seng was up by 5.6% to 19,002. The Nikkei closed higher by 1.9% at 8,597.
Near the open, the FTSE 100 was up less than 1% to 5,510. The DAX was off .49% to 3,139.
Investors may believe that after 3% to 5% rises in stocks, that the market is overbought. This would be particularly true if the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone had fundamentally improved. But, it has not. There are rumors that the IMF may raise more money to build a firewall around Spain. There are others that the new stability fund will be quickly increase in size. But the borrowing costs of Italy and Spain remain at historic highs.
In the US, although some portions of the economy appear to have improved, Congress has still made no progress with plans to shrink the budget deficit
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