European and American stock markets ended the last week of February in the green. However, its first part was dominated by bears. The market sentiment deteriorated after some releases of the economic data from the Eurozone. Plenty of them were disappointing. The services PMI stood at 53.0 pts. in February vs 53.6 pts. in January. What is more, the industrial PMI decreased from 51.0 pts. to 53.3 pts.. It is worth reiterating that German Ifo index went down to 105.7 pts. in February from 107.3 pts. last month. It was the third decline in a row. Moreover, investors were worried about the Brexit.

At the beginning of the week there were some releases of economic data from China and Japan. Nevertheless, the weak data did not have a substantial impact on market sentiment, which had significantly improved in the next days. On Wednesday the market was totally dominated by bulls. As a result, it was the best day on the global stock exchanges during the whole week. Subsequently, the end of the week brought a stabilization. As a result, the NASDAQ went up by 3.9%, the S&P500 increased by 2.8% and the DJI grew by 2.6%. In Europe, French CAC40 took off by 5.7%, the British FTSE250 and German DAX rose by 4.7%.

It was another week in which global financial markets moved towards south – the DJI decreased by 1.4%, the S&P500 dropped by 0.8% and the NASDAQ went down by 0.4%. In Europe, declines were much more severe. French CAC40 fell by 4.8%, British FTSE250 decreased by 3.6% and German DAX went down by 3.4%. Market sentiment was really poor. Investors expected that the new crisis would come. The list of factors which caused the greatest concerns was long.

Despite the fact that the economic data readings did not fail, the first week of February was dominated by bears – the NASDAQ decreased by 6.0%, the S&P500 fell by 3.8% and the DJI went down by 1.6%. In Europe, the stock markets ended the week in the red as well – German DAX declined by 5.2%, French CAC40 fell by 4.9% and British FTSE250 decreased by 2.9%. The latest data from Chinese economy improved the market sentiment. The industrial PMI for January, calculated by Caixin Media and Markit Economics, increased slightly to 48.4 pts. Moreover, the services PMI took off sharply to 52.4 pts.

In the last week of January most important stock markets liked the green color. It seemed, that the global market sentiment improved and the bulls returned. Investors were focused on the Fed which did not change the interest rate. In addition, the FOMC’s commentary contained some concerns - the council was afraid of economic slowdown. Therefore, investors believed in a further dovish monetary policy. Moreover, Fed’s doubts were confirmed by the annualized GDP’s reading for the fourth quarter of 2015 – it rose by 0.7% y/y vs 0.8% expected. Furthermore, data on durable goods’ orders failed as well. Unlike them, the releases of the Conference Board index and the Chicago PMI index did not.