US President Obama signs fiscal cliff deal

Financial markets turned cool toward the last-minute agreement Thursday, in contrast to the initial stocks surge which had greeted the deal Wednesday.

London's benchmark FTSE 100 index of top companies dipped 0.14 percent to 6,019.16 points in late morning deals, Frankfurt's DAX 30 index dropped 0.27 percent to 7,757.51 points and the Paris CAC 40 fell 0.54 percent to 3,713.64.

All three indices had surged by more than two percent on Wednesday, in a bright start to 2013, after U.S. lawmakers agreed on a deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.

In New York, the S&P 500 index had its best day of trading in more than a year Wednesday, closing more than 2.5 percent to the good.

The White House said in a statement that Obama had signed the bill late Wednesday, marking the culmination of weeks of high-stakes talks with lawmakers in Congress.

The agreement averted across-the-board tax hikes and automatic spending cuts which some had feared could have tipped the U.S. economy back into recession.

But then the International Monetary Fund, while welcoming the agreement for averting dire effects on the economy in the short term, warned that the underlying problem of hugely over-stretched public finances remained.

“More remains to be done to put U.S. public finances back on a sustainable path without harming the still fragile recovery,” warned IMF spokesman Gerry Rice.

“Specifically, a comprehensive plan that ensures both higher revenues and containment of entitlement spending over the medium term should be approved as soon as possible.”

1|2|Next Page>>

SHARE CLOSE
Blogger		Google+
Live Journal		Plurk
Stumble Upon

Tweet

	PREVIOUS ARTICLE
	Syria deaths 60,000; rebels besiege airports

NEXT ARTICLE
Central African Republic rebels halt advance, agree to peace talks

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email

Submit