A businessman passes a Banif bank branch on Passeig de Gracia shopping street in Barcelona. Shares of the bank slumped 7.6% yesterday.

AFP/London


Europe’s main stock markets ended narrowly mixed yesterday, with London sliding after a bigger-than-expected drop in British unemployment takes it close to the central bank’s threshold to begin raising interest rates.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 ended the day down 0.12% at 6,826.33 points and Frankfurt’s DAX 30 slid 0.10% to 9,720.11 points, but the CAC 40 in Paris edged up 0.03% to 4,324.98 points.
Milan gave up 0.19% and Madrid dropped 0.75%.
The euro dipped against the dollar.
“The FTSE is now entering the twilight zone where good news is bad news, as the surprise drop in unemployment has triggered fears the Bank of England will increase rates sooner than expected,” said David Madden, market analyst at IG traders.
Britain’s unemployment dropped faster-than-expected to a rate of 7.1% in the three months to the end of November, official data showed yesterday, further highlighting the nation’s economic recovery.
It fell from a rate of 7.4% in the quarter through to the end of October, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement. That was the lowest level for nearly five years, or since it stood at 6.8% in February 2009.
The Bank of England, under governor Mark Carney, has stated that it will consider raising its key interest rate from a record-low 0.50% once the unemployment rate falls to 7%.
But while minutes of its last policy meeting released yesterday showed the central bank saw “no immediate need to raise Bank Rate even if the 7% unemployment threshold were to be reached in the near future,” some bank’s like Citi have begun to pencil in a rate hike before the end of this year.
The British pound rose on the prospect of higher interest rates. It climbed to 1.2227 euros from 1.2150, and to $1.6576 from $1.6476.
Meanwhile the European single currency dipped to $1.3557 from $1.3559 late on Tuesday in New York.
The dollar was flat at 104.32 yen.
Gold prices edged up to $1,241 an ounce from $1,238 Tuesday on the London Bullion Market.
 The Russian ruble has hit five-year lows this week against the central bank’s foreign currency basket of dollars and euros – a politically worrying trend for the Kremlin because of the accompanying rise in the cost of living.
It stood at 33.89 against the greenback and 45.99 against the single European currency in evening trading – rates not seen since the worst months of Russia’s 2008-2009 financial crisis.
President Vladimir Putin yesterday dismissed growing speculation about an imminent currency devaluation.
He said there has been no discussion about taking such a step with the central bank, which recently stopped spending up to $60mn a day on efforts to keep the ruble within a predetermined trading range as it moves toward a fully floating exchange rate by the start of next year.
The Lisbon stock exchange index fell 3.3% as bank shares fell sharply following a report that the government will not allow them to use tax credits to boost their capital ratios, meaning they may need to seek more money from investors.
Brokers said investors were also booking profits as bank shares have risen strongly as the country’s economic prospects have brightened in recent months.
Shares in BCP bank tumbled 10.3% to €0.16, Banif slumped 7.6% to €0.01, BES fell 5.1% to €1.17 and BPI dropped 4.2% to €1.43.
US stocks traded mixed yesterday following the latest batch of mediocre fourth quarter corporate earnings reports.
In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.40% to 16,348.32 points, the broad-based S&P 500 dipped 0.08% to 1,842.31, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.22% to 4,235.13.