War and peace: shares ride Mideast rollercoaster

European stocks recovered from early losses Wednesday as traders started to hope that Mideast tension might not slide straight into war.

Julian Satterthwaite reports.

Iran's missile attack on U.S. forces put global share markets into reverse early on Wednesday (January 8).

But then investors had a bit of a rethink.

No one was killed in the strikes, and Donald Trump tweeted that 'all was well'.

Maybe war wasn't a certainty after all... By lunchtime benchmark indexes had recovered their early losses, or were making gains.

Even Germany's battered Dax index was back in the green, after losing about 1% early on.

Sentiment there had taken an extra hit after more grim economic data.

Industrial orders posted a surprise fall in November, hit by weak foreign demand.

But events in the Middle East dominated, and there were clear signs that early panic had eased.

Government bonds, gold, the Japanese yen - all popular safe havens - erased earlier gains.

Oil too fell back from an early spike.

In this game of tit-for-tat, the next move goes to Washington.