A roundup of trading on major world markets:
NEW YORK – Wall Street has dipped as oil price declines weighed on energy shares and Apple dragged on the market, but major indexes still posted gains for the week.
Energy was the worst performing sector, ending down 1.3 per cent on Friday. Oil prices fell as traders and analysts anticipate a weekend meeting of major oil exporters will do little to clear global oversupply quickly.
Apple shares dropped 2.0 per cent, the biggest drag on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The Nikkei business daily reported that the company will continue its reduced production of iPhones in light of sluggish sales.
Citigroup shares closed down 0.1 per cent after the company reported a sharp drop in quarterly profit, capping a big week of bank earnings. Financial shares, the worst performing sector this year, fell 0.3 per cent and snapped a five-session winning streak.
Despite Friday’s declines, the major indexes tallied their seventh week of gains out of the past nine.
The recent run is “giving investors pause, wondering if there’s going to be a little pullback at some point,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis.
“You take in the fact of oil dropping a fair amount here today … that’s giving people pause. Oil is still an important contributor here to expectations within the stock market.”
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 28.97 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 17,897.46, the S&P 500 lost 2.05 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 2,080.73 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 7.67 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 4,938.22.
LONDON – British shares retreated as concerns about a possible Brexit and stagnation at the top-end of the market put pressure on housebuilding companies.
Housebuilders extended their losses from the previous session, with Berkeley Group, Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey falling between 2.2 per cent to 3.5 per cent on Friday.
The Thomson Reuters UK Homebuilding index dropped 2.3 per cent, hitting an 11-month low.
Investors cited concerns around a June referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union and worries about a slowdown in the luxury sector.
“Ahead of Brexit, people have been selling the housebuilders and the pressure will remain until we get the vote out of the way – that’s the main headwind for UK housebuilders,” Zeg Choudhry, managing director at LONTRAD, said.
“It’s (a) fear of the UK being not the place to invest or … less competitive outside of the eurozone,” he added.
The FTSE 100 index was down 0.3 per cent at 6,344.35 points by 0833 GMT (1833 AEST) on Friday, broadly in line with the rest of the European market.
HONG KONG – Reassuring Chinese GDP data has helped stocks, commodity markets and the US dollar consolidate strong weekly gains, as focus turned to a meeting of top oil producers about a potential output freeze.
Data from China on Friday drew approval as it showed the country’s giant economy grew at 6.7 per cent in the first quarter year-on-year, bolstering the view its slowdown may be bottoming out.
The major currencies seen as most dependent on China were the main gainers. The Australian and New Zealand dollars rose 0.3 and 0.9 per cent respectively, also helped by the week’s gains in key commodity prices.
Traders were waiting for IMF and G20 meetings in Washington later for signs from financial leaders on the next stages of their efforts to drag most of the developed world out of a debilitating cycle of debt and very low inflation.
Speculation was also circling about whether top oil producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia would hammer a deal in Doha to curb output.
“Chinese economic data is showing signs of stabilisation, including recent PMI numbers, as well as the latest figures on industrial production and retail sales,” said Suan Teck Kin, economist at the United Overseas Bank in Singapore.
Japan’s Nikkei, one of the biggest losers of 2016 so far, closed down 0.3 per cent on the day but 6.5 per cent higher for the week following the drop back in the yen.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan crept up 0.1 per cent. That index has gained about 3.6 per cent on the week during which it hit a five-month high, helped by a slight thaw in pessimism over the Chinese economy and an earlier surge in crude oil prices.
The Hang Seng index fell 0.1 per cent, to 21,316.47, but for the week, the gauge jumped 4.6 per cent, the best weekly performance in nearly two months.
WELLINGTON – The S&P/NZX 50 Index gained 20.93 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 6,844.74.