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GLOBAL MARKETS-All fall down - stocks, dollar, oil, bonds

Published 10/21/2009, 07:53 AM
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* Stocks, oil, dollar, bonds all fall

* Wall Street set for poor start, earnings in focus

* Emerging market sentiment hit by Brazil tax

By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent

LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Recent trading patterns broke at least temporarily on Wednesday with both the dollar and world stocks slipping, the latter weakened particularly by falling emerging markets.

Wall Street looked set for a negative start. Crude oil dropped as well, sitting below $79 a barrel and pulling further away from its recent one-year peak. U.S. Treasuries and euro zone government bonds were also down.

The day's gainers were to be found in gold and copper.

The dollar has traded inversely to both oil and equities for much of this year, so the weakness of all three together was unusual. Bonds have also tended to trade inversely to stocks.

Emerging market stocks were underperforming with MSCI's benchmark index <.MSCIEF> down more than 1 percent compared with about a third of that developed market stocks.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega announced on Monday that his government would charge a 2 percent financial transactions tax on foreign investments in Brazilian stocks and fixed-income securities in a bid to prevent the country's currency from strengthening further.

This hit Brazilian assets but also triggered some concern among emerging market investors that the idea may spread among other countries concerned about the degree of "hot money" flowing into their markets.

Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> was down 0.8 percent after hitting a one-year high on Tuesday before falling. It has gained 22 percent this year.

"It seems that while we may be heading out of a recession, the pace of recovery may be sluggish at best, and we could well see more profit-taking on the horizon," said Tim Hughes, head of sales trading at IG Index, in London.

WEAK DOLLAR

The dollar fell against a basket of major currencies <.DXY> heading for its 10th loss in 15 trading days this month. The index has also been in the red for seven of the past eight months.

Sentiment towards the currency continues to be hurt by the prospect of U.S. interest rates staying at exceptionally low levels for longer than most other currencies.

The New Zealand dollar shone meanwhile after New Zealand's central bank chief Alan Bollard said a high currency was not necessarily an obstacle to raising the cash rate. [ID:nSYD348934]

The euro was flat against the dollar compared with late New York trade at $1.4923 .

Euro zone government bond yields were higher as prices fell. The 10-year Bund yielding 3.288, up 5 basis points. (Additional reporting by Atul Prakash and Christoph Steitz; Editing by Andy Bruce)

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