Trade in the Asian stock markets have been conducted this morning at a mixed trend with a tendency for index declines, this after the Asian stock markets have already lost about 2.5% in the past few days, due to concerns of a sharp rise in oil prices and continued escalation in the unrest in the Arab world. As such, the Tokyo stock exchange drops 0.9%, the Seoul stock exchange drops by 0.6%, the Sydney stock exchange drops by 0.7%, and only the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges record slight climbs of 0.2%.

In the American macroeconomic sphere, the housing market is beginning to show signs of recovery after the rate of housing sales recorded an ascent yesterday, reaching an annualized rate of 5.36 million sales per year in January, above analysts' prediction of an annualized rate of 5.22 million sales and as compared rate of 5.2 million in the parralel period of 2010, as reported by America's NAR.

The price of crude oil crossed yesterday the bar of 100 dollars per barrel for the first time since 2008, due to the escalation of the unrest in Libya and the insistence of the country's leader, Muammar Quaddhafi, to continue fighting protestors demanding his removal. Senior economists estimate that, should the production of oil in Libya and Algeria suffer, the price of oil is likely to leap to 200 United States dollars per barrel or higher.