Global markets face rocky day as France opens for trade

World stock markets face a turbulent open on Monday after the attacks in Paris on Friday night that killed 129.

Market sentiment was weak before the attacks, with the UK's FTSE 100 closing at a six-week low and Wall Street having its worst week since August.

Investors may now seek traditional safe-haven investments such as gold, the US dollar, and Japanese yen.

Meanwhile, French financial markets will be open as usual on Monday, stock and derivatives exchange Euronext said.

A spokesman said: "Our priority is the safety of our staff and there will therefore be extra security in place in Paris on Monday."

'Negative impact'

As well as the recent lacklustre performances in the UK and US, France's Cac-40, the German Dax, and major Asian indexes had all closed down on Friday.

And French stocks, including those connected with the country's large tourism sector, could be most at risk of large falls, analysts say.

The tourism sector accounts for about 7.5% of French GDP.

"These Paris terrorist attacks and the larger scale of this attack could have a meaningful negative impact on the travel and tourism sector," said Robert T Lutts, president and chief investment officer at Cabot Wealth Management told Reuters.

"It is possible this could cause investors to take a bit more cautious stance on the higher risk sectors of the markets."

Euro 2016

Hidenori Suezawa, financial market and fiscal analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities, added: "Given that France has a big tourism industry there may be some damage to the economy if this leads to a fall in visitors to France, or in tourism in general after the crash of a Russian plane."

Meanwhile, the organisers of the Euro 2016 football tournament, which will see a huge influx of tourist visitors from across Europe, say the event should not be cancelled.

Tournament organiser Jacques Lambert told French radio station RTL: "We will take the necessary decisions for Euro 2016 to take place in the best safety conditions.

"Security in stadiums works well, the risk is more in the streets, in spontaneous gatherings."
'Rush to safety'

Following the Madrid bombings in 2004 and London bombings of 2005 the Spanish and UK markets dropped by 2.2% and 1.4% respectively after those events.

"The knee-jerk reaction in other terrorist attacks over the last decade has been a rush to safety, including aggressive buying in the US Treasury markets," said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC.

Investors in Europe and the US will be closely watching the reaction of markets in Asia and Australia when they open.

Shane Oliver, chief economist at Australia's AMP Capital in Sydney, said there would be short-term market nervousness, but he thought the economic impact would be limited.

"Markets will quickly recover and go on to focus on other things," he added.