The Amsterdam stock exchange’s AEX index opened down over 5% on Thursday as fears of a recession grew. On Wednesday the blue chip index had closed down 7.6%.

Postal firm TNT was the biggest loser in early trading with a 17% fall after lowering its full year forecasts.
‘We closed down [yesterday] because confidence in the market is disappearing and doubts are increasing,’ trader Koen Bender from Mercurius asset management told Trouw.
Financial services group IBG was one of the major losers, closing down 13.2% at €11.93. Shares in satellite navigation system maker TomTom were 18% lower at the end of the day.
In the Telegraaf, technical analysts say they expect the AEX to level off at around 220 points – which it last reached in March 2003.
‘History shows that after a sharp fall, the AEX reaches its lowest point in the October to early December period,’ independent analyst Michael Ahrens tells the paper.
Technical analysts do not look at actual economic news but at historic trends, the paper says.
Edward Loef, a technical analyst with Theodoor Gilissen points out that in 1929, after the Dow Jones index crashed in the US, there were two days when the index rose 18% and then a seven-day decline of 27%.
‘Between last Friday and Tuesday morning, the AEX rose 19%,’ he tells the Telegraaf. ‘If history repeats itself, we will hit 219.81 points on October 24.’