September started off with a bearish start for European markets, dropping to a seven-week low amid growing fears over economic growth in Europe, aggressive interest rate hikes and steadily accelerating inflation.

Concerns are fueled by the latest data, which show that the manufacturing sector of the Eurozone contracted in August for the second month in a row. The reason is that demand is falling and European industry cannot sell all of its products, leading to unprecedented stockpiling.

Meanwhile, developments on the inflation front are just as ominous, leading to higher bets that the ECB will continue its aggressive 75 basis point interest rate hike.

The markets give an 80% chance of such an increase. The generally negative climate is exacerbated by data from the Chinese economy, which return cities that are key to its trade, production and development, into a tight lockdown.

Concern about production cuts in the Eurozone for the second month.

As such, its manufacturing sector is in decline, and Chinese industry sources are telling the international media that overseas demand is declining.

In this atmosphere of uncertainty and worry, the pan-European Eurostoxx closed with a loss of 1.85%, while the decline in equity price indices in major European markets was just as large. London’s FTSE 100 ended down 1.86%, the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt down 1.60% and the Paris CAC 40 down 1.48%.

Meanwhile, the euro again fell 1:1 against the dollar yesterday by 0.99, while the “black gold” fell another day.

The price of Brent oil traded late in the evening at $86.77 per barrel, down 3.10%, while the main Wall Street indexes were lower in the evening.