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Global shares slide on European travel limits, Chinese data
Global shares fell on Friday after European countries imposed more limits on travel to counter a rise in coronavirus contagions and new data out of China showed that its economic recovery remains subdued.
Tokyo: Global shares fell on Friday after European countries imposed more limits on travel to counter a rise in coronavirus contagions and new data out of China showed that its economic recovery remains subdued.
Shares in Europe trended lower after Britain said it was imposing a 14-day quarantine on travelers from France, which said it would respond in kind. Tourism and travel stocks were hit particularly hard, with budget airlines easyJet and IAG down 6 per cent.
France's CAC 40 dropped 1.7 per cent to 4,956, while Germany's DAX fell 0.9 per cent to 12,871. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 1.6 per cent to 6,089. U.S. shares were set to drift lower with Dow futures down 0.3 per cent and S&P 500 futures falling 0.1 per cent China reported its factory output rose 4.8 per cent from a year earlier in July, on a par with June's increase. Retail sales fell 1.1 per cent, as consumers remain cautious.
Malaysia reported, meanwhile, that its economy contracted at a real annual rate of 16.5 per cent in April-June, its worst downturn on record. The Malaysian central bank forecast that the economy will return to growth in 2021.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 gained nearly 0.2 per cent to finish at 23,289.36. South Korea's Kospi slipped 1.2 per cent to 2,407.49. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.6 per centto 6,126.20. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gyrated earlier in the day but lost 0.2 per cent to 25,183.01, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 1.2 per cent to 3,360.10.
Trade tensions between the U.S. and China are also on investors' minds as so much of Asian regional growth depends on exports to those giant economies.
The two sides are due to hold talks online later Friday on a trade deal reached in January that brought a truce in their bruising tariff war.
U.S. retail sales, production and productivity data are expected later in the day.
Benchmark U.S. crude rose 1 cent to USD 42.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, added a cent as well to USD 44.97 a barrel.
The dollar fell to 106.67 Japanese yen from 106.95 yen. The euro dropped to USD 1.1807 from USD 1.1815.
(AP)
