Stock markets stage partial recovery

World’s markets have staged a partial recovery after a week of precipitous falls and volatility.

London’s FTSE 100 index was up over 1% in mid-afternoon trading, while Germany’s DAX was up 1.76% and France’s Cac 40 was up more than 2%.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones index opened nearly 1% higher after better-than-expected US industrial production data helped steady the ship.

Fears over a weakening global economic outlook had unsettled investors.

The FTSE 100 had fallen 10% since early September, wiping £175bn off the value of listed businesses.

Steven Saywell, head of foreign exchange strategy at BNP Paribas, said the real concern over the faltering eurozone economy was inflation, currently running at 0.3%.

“We believe the risk is it could fall even further,” he said.

BNP Paribas believes European Central Bank president Mario Draghi should take bold measures to buy sovereign bonds in an attempt to convince investors that the rate of inflation would increase.