Bourses have stumbled and the euro has declined today on concern Europe will struggle to resolve its debt crisis after Italy sold five year bonds with a yield of 6.29 per cent.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 1.1 per cent to 238.24 at 12.30 pm in London as all 19 industry groups declined.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1.1 per cent and Standard and Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in December retreated 0.5 per cent. Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbed 1.1 per cent.
The euro fell by 0.8 per cent to $1.3636.
There were some signs that investors were willing to believe for now that Greece and Italy's new governments can implement reforms needed to save Europe from meltdown.
"For the time being, the market is willing to back these changes but action not just political rhetoric will be pivotal to these markets extending gains," a London-based trader said.
London's blue chip index .FTSE fell 43.34 points, or 0.8 per cent to 5,502.04 at lunchtime, led by banking and commodity stocks as investors exited riskier assets.
In Dublin, the Iseq was trading at 2703.65 at 1.45pm, up a quarter of one per cent on the day.
Kingspan, which reported increased revenues this morning, added 5 cent this morning in rising to €6.05.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)