After a bright start markets appear to be suffering a case of the jitters, in particular Germany's Dax.
Traders were hard pressed to explain the turnaround, which saw the FTSE 100 fall to 6620 having earlier climbed as high as 6688. The UK index is currently up 1.80 points at 6637.41.
The Dax is currently down 42 points or 0.42%, a 110 points or so turnaround on the day so far.
One concern was the threat of deflation in the eurozone, while comments from German institutions suggesting the European Central Bank could hold interest rates at 0.25% until the end of 2015 not helping to allay these fears. With recent talk from the ECB suggesting it could begin bond buying or allow negative rates, investors were unsettled by another sign that Germany does not want to sanction such moves.
Meanwhile industrial output figures from Italy and France were disappointing, outweighing Greece's successful return to the bond markets.
Ishaq Siddiqi, market strategist at ETX Capital, pointed to another possible reason for the sudden turnaround in markets, with a large sale in the Eurostoxx50 futures:
In terms of price action, weakness in the Eurostoxx 50 pulled the other indices lower which in turn flushed out stops.
Between 1020 and 1030 58,000 lots went through in the Eurostoxx50 June contract which is much higher than usual. Linked to portfolio accounts selling.
Earlier, [we] heard about a big sell order in US futures but not confirmed – take with pinch of salt.
