* Oil prices retreat as Kuwait strike ends
* World stock markets lose ground
By Sudip Kar-Gupta
LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) - Stocks fell around the world on
Wednesday as the price of crude declined after a strike by
Kuwaiti oil workers ended.
Brent and U.S. crude oil futures prices LCOc1 CLc1
dropped as worries about oversupply in the oil market returned
to the fore O/R .
The FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 of leading European
shares responded by falling 0.3 percent. The MSCI All-Country
World index .MIWD00000PUS also fell.
The MSCI World Index .MIWO00000PUS , which tracks stocks
from developed economies, slipped 0.1 percent and the MSCI
Emerging Market index .MSCIEF dropped 0.7 percent.
Recent gains by European stocks, which reached three-month
highs earlier this week, were just a temporary bounce in a
longer-term decline, said Andreas Clenow, a hedge fund manager
at ACIES Asset Management. The FTSEurofirst remains down around
5 percent so far in 2016.
"We are still in a bear market," Clenow said.
The tumbling oil price also hit commodity-linked currencies
such as the Australian and Canadian dollars, which pulled back
from their recent peaks. FRX/
The end of the Kuwait strike revived the bearish mood
brought on by the failure of talks on output by major producers
in Dohama last weekend. They could not agree to limit production
and reverse a slump in prices since mid-2014.
"We were bearish before Doha. Prices had risen too far on
false hopes of a deal. Now that this has been corrected, we're
more neutral in our price outlook," said Georgi Slavov, head of
research at commodities brokerage Marex Spectron.
"Generally, we think that oil prices have passed their
bottom this year, and we expect a Brent price range of $45-$55
per barrel for the mid-term," Slavov added.