Long abstract

About Statistics Publications & Documents Information by Country

Financial markets have shown resilience in an environment of marked increases in oil and commodity prices and somewhat diminished expectations about the strength of the economic recovery. Major stock markets, which had risen over most of the first quarter, showed some weakening at the end of March, and again in late May and in mid-August, losing part of the gains they had made since the end of the downturn in the first half of 2003. Since then, however, equity markets have risen moderately or at least held steady and bond markets have absorbed, better than had been feared by some analysts, the turn in the interest rate cycle.