London (AFP) – Stock markets climbed Friday as oil prices dropped after President Donald Trump ruled out a strike on Iran before next month’s US midterm elections. Trump said Washington was holding “productive discussions” with Tehran after reports that the White House had asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a possible attack ahead of the November 3 vote. It was suggested that a show of strength might help struggling Republicans’ chances at the polls.
Following the reports and before Trump’s reaction, the main international crude contract Brent North Sea had jumped more than five percent on Thursday. “The trajectory of the Middle East crisis remains highly uncertain, with Brent crude still trading around $103 per barrel despite Friday’s losses,” said Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.
A separate major concern emerged over the technology sector. The Financial Times reported that OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, expected to make $50 billion in annualised revenue this year, below the $70 billion flagged. That spooked tech stocks, even if Bloomberg later cited unnamed sources as saying the firm expected to hit the original estimate. “The discrepancy may reflect differences in revenue measurement rather than an outright deterioration in OpenAI’s underlying business,” said Chris Weston at Pepperstone.
Still, “in a market where valuations are increasingly dependent on ambitious revenue and cash flow projections, the headlines have been enough to trigger a meaningful one-day repositioning,” he added. The news report helped send Wall Street’s Nasdaq Composite down more than one percent on Thursday, with Nvidia down nearly three percent and Microsoft, AMD, and Amazon also ending sharply lower.
But Asia mostly closed higher Friday as early selling was pared back, and Europe’s main stock markets also recovered to post solid gains of one percent or more in afternoon deals. Wall Street opened higher, with the Nasdaq Composite rallying 0.6 percent. Shares in Microsoft and Amazon both rebounded more than one percent, while Nvidia shares rose 0.4 percent. “The big test comes as earnings season gets going over the next few weeks, when the companies writing the biggest checks for AI tell us whether they’re still prepared to keep writing them,” said Josh Gilbert at the trading firm eToro.
Elsewhere, EU finance ministers struck a deal Friday to establish a new, more powerful European securities watchdog as part of the bloc’s efforts to unify financial markets. The agreement announced in Luxembourg gives enhanced powers to the Paris-based European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which will supervise major players. Today it has only a coordinating role since national regulators supervise their own markets. But the Frankfurt Stock Exchange operator Deutsche Boerse will be excluded from the body’s supervisory scope after Germany sought a carve-out, a diplomat told AFP.
– Key figures at around 1330 GMT –
New York – Dow: UP 0.2 percent at 51,309.14 points
New York – S&P 500: UP 0.3 percent at 7,787.07
New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.6 percent at 27,342.27
London – FTSE 100: UP 1.1 percent at 10,556.34
Paris – CAC 40: UP 1.0 percent at 7,808.47
Frankfurt – DAX: UP 1.4 percent at 25,146.03
Tokyo – Nikkei 225: FLAT at 68,030.92 (close)
Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.8 percent at 24,211.35 (close)
Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,813.79 (close)
Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.1 percent at $103.14 per barrel
West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.8 percent at $90.79 per barrel
Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1200 from $1.1213 on Thursday
Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3218 from $1.3228
Dollar/yen: UP at 158.32 yen from 157.92 yen
Euro/pound: DOWN at 84.71 pence from 84.77 pence
© 2024 AFP
