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War unsettles Europe markets
LONDON, England (CNN) -- European markets were mixed in midday trading on Tuesday as investors worry about the economic impact of a possible lengthy war in Iraq. London's FTSE 100 was little changed at 3,743.7 and Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax rose 1.1 percent to 2,577.7, while the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris inched up 0.4 percent to 2,737.20. The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks, was up 0.3 percent. Investor sentiment has been rattled by perceived weekend setbacks for the U.S.-led coalition forces, which could lead to a protracted war that could hurt the fragile economic recovery. But markets inched higher as elements of U.S. 7th Cavalry broke through heavy resistance and crossed a heavily mined bridge across the Euphrates River as they headed north towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. (Full story) "We have not had the experience of a long war for years, not since Vietnam, and visibility is now quite low," Thierry Lacraz, a strategist at Geneva bank Pictet & Cie, told Reuters. Gold opened up $3.60 at $333.10 in European trading on Tuesday morning, while the dollar traded just off its lowest level against the euro and yen since the start of the war. The euro was trading at $1.0690 against the dollar in midday trading. In the U.S. on Monday, the Dow suffered its worst one-day selloff in six months as investors ditched stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 3.6 percent, or 307.29 points, to 8214.68, the Nasdaq composite slid 3.6 percent, or 52.06 points, to 1369.78, and the S&P 500 index dropped 3.5 percent, or 31.67 points, to 864.23. The AEX index in Amsterdam rose 1 percent and Milan's MIB30 index added 0.6 percent, while the SMI in Zurich climbed 0.5 percent. Wall Street was expected to open higher later on Tuesday. S&P 500 index futures dipped 3.2 points to 866.7 on the Globex trading system, while fair value, a measure that takes account of interest costs and dividend payments, was calculated at 862.67. In corporate news, Britain's Imperial Chemicals Industry (ICI) plunged 43 percent to 87.98 pence after the company warned profit would fall in the first quarter of this year. (Full story) Deutsche Post, Germany's dominant postal service, fell 5 percent to 9.13 euros after agreeing to buy the ground delivery operations of U.S. freight company Airbourne for $1.05 billion. (Full story) But shares in Europe's third biggest retailer Metro (FMEO) climbed 1.8 percent to 19.17 euros after it posted a three percent rise in 2002 operating profit.
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