Thanks to concerns about Portugal’s banks repaying debt, Europe’s VStoxx Index and the VIX jumped on Thursday.?

For the VStoxx Index, it increased to 16.85 (12 percent) as of 3:27 p.m. London time and neared its greatest gain since March. The VIX rose 8.07 percent to close at 12.59. To date this week, both have increased greater than 22 percent.?

?Andrew Wilkinson, chief market analyst at Interactive Brokers LLC, said via Bloomberg, “This could just be a catalyst for a market correction. You?d have to see a sustained period of selling, back-to-back losses of 1 to 1.5 percent into next week, before people will start piling on the protection.?

Over in the stock market, equities fell and troubled European nations also saw declines as there was speculative talk again that the region’s euro is still vulnerable “to shocks as it emerges from the sovereign debt crisis.”
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Portugal dominated headlines as its central bank responded that the troubled Banco Espirito Santo SA, the country’s second-biggest lender who had missed its debt payments, is protected. Earlier Moody’s Investors Service had downgraded a company in its group, noting “a lack of transparency and links to other companies” reported Bloomberg.?
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On Thursday, the Standard & Poor?s 500 Index (SPX) fell 0.41 percent to 1,964.68. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell .52% while the Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped for a fifth straight day. ?