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Strong week for markets despite sluggish Friday

Equity markets saw mild losses on Friday following a week packed with central bank rate decisions that were largely in line with expectations. Despite some losses at the end the week, the major indices mostly saw gains over the full week.

Date
Auteur
Shane Strowmatt, LGT
Temps de lecture
5 minutes
market numbers
© Shutterstock

In New York, equity markets fell slightly to finish the week. The Dow Jones Industrial reached a high since December to start Friday’s session but nevertheless ended the day down 0.32% to close at 34,299.12 points. Over the course of the week the index gained about 1.3%. The S&P 500 also lost 0.37% on Friday, closing at 4,409.59 points. The Nasdaq-100 ended the session 0.67% at 15,083.92 points. It also managed to pull of a strong gain of 3.8% over the full week. In individual stocks, chipmaker Intel ended Friday up 1.54% after saying it would invest as much as 4.6 billion US dollars in a factory in Poland. Shares in consumer robot manufacturer iRobot ended Friday up more than 21% after Britain gave the green light to its planned acquisition by Amazon.

In macroeconomic data, consumers’ inflation expectations in the US dropped to their lowest in more than two years, data released at the end of last week showed. The consumer survey by the University of Michigan showed one-year inflation expectations falling to 3.3% in June from 4.2% in May. The drop is largely due to falling energy costs. The US Federal Reserve (Fed) targets a 2% inflation rate, but inflation in the world’s largest economy was still at 4% in May. The Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 63.9 from 59.2 the month before.

In Europe, the pace of wage growth cooled slightly in the eurozone to begin the year, data released on Friday showed. Hourly labour costs in the euro area were up 5% in the first quarter of the year when compared with the same quarter a year earlier. In the EU, wage growth was 5.3%. In the fourth quarter, wages increased by 5.6% in the euro area and 5.7% in the EU. The decelerating pace of wage growth could remove some price pressure in the euro area, where inflation is coming down but still over 6%. The EuroStoxx 50 ended Friday up 0.68%.

In the Asia-Pacific region, stock markets started the new week on a mostly sour note. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was down 1.2% Monday after the Bank of Japan continued its ultra-easy monetary policy on Friday and the yen plunged to a 15-year low versus the euro to finish the week. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was 1.5% lower Monday. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite lost 0.6%, and the Shenzhen Component was down 0.5%.

Corporate news in focus: No major corporate news scheduled today.

Economic data in focus: No major economic data scheduled today.

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Publisher: LGT Bank (Switzerland) Ltd., Glärnischstrasse 36, CH-8027 Zurich
Editor: Alessandro Fezzi
Source: LGT Bank (Switzerland) Ltd.

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