BANGKOK; 24 Sep 2018; (AP) — Shares have fallen in Europe and Asia after China reportedly rebuffed a plan for talks with the U.S. on resolving their dispute over trade and technology.
KEEPING SCORE: Germany’s DAX fell 0.4 percent to 12,382.50 and the CAC 40 in France lost 0.3 percent to 5,479.86. The FTSE 100 in Britain lost 0.2 percent to 7,472.33. The futures contracts for the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 both fell 0.2 percent, auguring a slow start on Wall Street.
THE DAY IN ASIA: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.6 percent to 27,499.39 and Australia’s S&P ASX 200 edged 0.1 percent lower to 6,186.90. India’s Sensex gave up 1.5 percent to 36,296.80. Shares rose in Singapore but fell in Thailand and Indonesia. Markets in Japan, South Korea, Shanghai and elsewhere in the region were closed for national holidays.
CHINA-US-TRADE: China and the U.S. pressed ahead with another tariff hike on each other’s products. There was no sign that proposed trade talks between Washington and Beijing would go ahead. The two sides have announced penalty tariffs on tens of billions of dollars’ worth of each other’s exports in an escalating dispute over Beijing’s state-led technology development and other policies.
ANALYST’S VIEWPOINT: “The weekend headlines have not been a blessing for ‘risk sentiment,’” Stephen Innes of OANDA said in a commentary. He added, “the optimist in me is siding on ‘this too shall pass,’ but with markets closed in Japan, China and South Korea as a large part of Asia celebrates the Mid-Autumn festival, it impossible to gauge sentiment in these drastically diminished liquidity conditions.”
WALL STREET: Wall Street capped a milestone-setting week Friday with a mixed finish for the major U.S. stock indexes and the second all-time high in two days for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The S&P 500 index dropped 1.08 points on Friday to 2,929.67, just under its latest all-time high set a day earlier. The Dow gained 0.3 percent to 26,743.50, thanks largely to gains in Boeing and McDonald’s. The Nasdaq composite lost 0.5 percent, to 7,986.96. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies gave up 0.5 percent to 1,712.32.
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude picked up $1.48 cents to $72.26 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 0.7 percent to settle at $70.78 a barrel Friday in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, added $1.96 to $80.20 per barrel.
CURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 112.66 yen from Friday’s 112.60 yen. The euro climbed to $1.1770 from $1.1752. The British pound rose to $1.3124 from $1.3072.
