In European Equity Markets the pan-European STOXX 600 ended off around 1.6 percent, with all of Europe’s sectors posting declines. All major bourses closed in negative territory, with Germany’s DAX leading the losses, down more than 2.6 percent. Zurich Insurance pared almost all of its gains to end marginally lower after earnings beat expectations. Sticking with the sector, Swiss Re closed up around 2 percent after the firm had said it was in talks with Japan’s Softbank about a “potential minority investment.” TDC jumped almost 18 percent after the telecoms operator confirmed that it had received, and then rejected, a takeover approach from Australia’s Macquarie and three Danish pension funds. UniCredit shares closed up over 2 percent after results topped analyst expectations.

In Currency Markets sterling jumped as much as 1.3 percent against the dollar on Thursday after the Bank of England said interest rates probably needed to rise sooner and by a bit more than it had previously thought because of the strength of the global economy. Before the BoE announcement, in which the bank also raised its UK economic forecasts, markets had priced in a 50 percent chance of a rate hike by May. Interest rate futures now project a 60 percent chance of a BoE rate hike in June and fully price in an increase in August meeting. The pound rose to a day’s high of $1.4067 after trading flat before the BoE announcement. It later gave up much of those gains and was at $1.3942 as a broader sell-off in markets in late European trading hit sterling.

In Commodities Markets oil prices touched their lowest in six weeks on Thursday after data showed U.S. crude output had reached record highs and the North Sea’s largest crude pipeline reopened following an outage. A stronger dollar, on track for its biggest weekly rise since November 2016, was adding pressure by making it more profitable for holders of other currencies to sell dollar-denominated assets such as oil. Brent crude futures were last down 29 cents at $65.22 a barrel, having hit a 2018 low of $64.68 earlier. U.S. futures eased 2 cents to $61.77 a barrel. Brent futures have lost about 8 percent since reaching a four-year high above $71 in late January. U.S. crude inventories rose 1.9 million barrels in the week to Feb. 2, to 420.25 million barrels.

In US Equity Markets  indexes took another beating in early Thursday trade as a rise in bond yields and higher inflation continued to unnerve investors following a historic drop on Monday. The S&P 500 was down 27.4 points, or 1.02 percent, at 2,654.26. The Nasdaq Composite was down 1.17 percent, at 6,969.49. All 11 major S&P sectors were lower, with the industrials and financial indexes leading the decliners. Home Depot’s 1.7 percent fall and Caterpillar’s 2.3 percent decline weighed the most on the Dow, while JPMorgan was among the top weights on the S&P. Among stocks, Twitter jumped 20 percent after it reported its first quarterly net profit and topped estimates as video ad sales rose. Tesla was down 3.2 percent after the electric automaker said spending could rise in 2018.

In Bond Markets Euro zone government bond yields scaled new multi-year highs on Thursday, as a budget agreement in the United States and a coalition deal in Germany pointed to higher spending on both sides of the Atlantic. Germany’s pro-spending Social Democrats (SPD) are set to head the finance ministry in a coalition government, while U.S. Senate leaders reached a deal on Wednesday to raise spending on military and domestic programmes by almost $300 billion over the next two years. The yield on Germany’s 10-year government bond, the benchmark for the bloc, hit 0.808 percent, its highest since September 2015. Most 10-year euro zone bond yields were up by 3-7 basis points.