World stocks down after Chinese inflation jump

By PAN PYLAS, AP Business Writer Pan Pylas, Ap Business Writer – 20 mins ago

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 31.49 points, or 0.5 percent, at 5,609.08 while the CAC-40 in France was 22.14 points, or 0.6 percent, lower at 3,921.41. Germany‘s DAX fell 13.04 points, or 0.2 percent, to 5,923.68.

"Financial markets are finely poised," said Kit Juckes, chief economist at ECU Group.

"My bets, unchanged of late, are that equities break out to the upside," he added.

More will come on Friday when U.S. retail sales and consumer sentiment figures, which should shine a light on the state of consumption in the U.S. The state of the U.S. consumer is particularly important for the U.S. economy as retail spending accounts for around 70 percent of the world‘s largest economy.

The markets are wary at the moment by concerns that the monetary authorities in China may start raising interest rates soon to keep a lid on mounting inflationary pressures — figures earlier showed that China‘s inflation rate jumped to 2.7 percent in February over a year earlier from 1.5 percent in January.

"The People‘s Bank of China is behind the curve and needs to take action on the liabilities side of banks‘ balance sheets," said Diana Choyleva, an analyst at Lombard Street Research.

Hong Kong‘s Hang Seng gained 19.91 points, or 0.1 percent, to 21,228.20 while South Korea‘s Kospi shed 0.3 percent to 1,656.62. China‘s Shanghai benchmark added 0.1 percent to 3,051.28 and India‘s Sensex was up 0.2 percent.

Oil prices were steady with benchmark crude for April delivery up 10 cents to $81.99 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 60 cents to settle at $82.09 on Wednesday.

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