DAX offers chink of light

A near half percent increase on Germany’s benchmark DAX index was one of the only shards of light on an otherwise black day for European markets.

The European Commission feels Spain is likely to miss its deficit reduction targets for this year and next unless it gets meaner with its policies. Spain is looking to cut its budget deficit (as a percentage of GDP) from 8.5% to 5.3% this year and down, further, to 3% next year.

Fresh concern that Greece may leave the eurozone also played on investors’ minds, to a degree, with European stocks — as a whole — down for a second consecutive day to a four-month low.

“The real concern isn’t about Greece, it’s about the euro and whether it breaks up — that is key,” Mark Tinker, a fund manager at AXA Framlington Investment Management told Bloomberg.

The euro fell to 1.2948 against the dollar yesterday afternoon, heralding its longest losing streak in three and a half years.

London’s FTSE was down 0.44%, the CAC-40 index in Paris shed 0.2%, Spain’s IBEX slid by 2.77% and Milan’s Borsa Italiana fell by 1.18%.

However, Frankfurt was up by 0.47% and Dublin’s ISEQ crept back up by nearly 0.4%.