Wall Street Weak Europe Looks Up – US-FOREX.US
Wall Street started Friday on a lukewarm foot.Stocks were down in the United States during morning trading, as the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.2%, or 19.20 points, to 8,453.20, while the Nasdaq composite index lowered 0.1%, or 1.84 points, to 1,827.70. The S&P 500 index dropped 0.3%, or 2.38 points, to 917.88.Meanwhile overseas, European equity markets marched into positive territory on Friday afternoon as oil prices rose and banks staged a recovery.The Dow Jones Euro Stoxx index of the continent’s 50 leading shares was up 0.2%, with London’s FTSE 100 up 0.3%, Germany’s DAX up 0.5%, and France’s Cac-40 down 0.3%.Oil prices rose after Nigerian militants claimed they’d carried out an attack on a Royal Dutch Shell facility. Crude futures rose to 71.23, from 70.23 in pre-market trading on the NYMEX. Gasoline for July delivery rose to 1.922 a gallon, from 1.676 in New York.
Oil services firm Petrofrac rose 6%, with Royal Dutch Shell’s
“A” shares up 0.7% and BP
up 0.2% in London.Share of UBS
fell 3% to 13.55 Swiss francs after the Swiss bank said that it was raising 3.5 billion by placing shares with institutional investors and that it expected to post a smaller loss in the second quarter, than it had in the first three months of the year.
French banking shares rose after the Christian Noyer, the governor of the country’s central bank, said that recent stress tests had shown the banks’ solvency was “satisfactory.” Societe Generale
was up 1.6%, while BNP Paribas
was up 1.5%. European currencies continued to strengthen against the greenback: the pound rose 0.8%, to buy 1.6507, from 1.6371 on Thursday, while the euro rose to 1.4095, from 1.3988. There were further signs of stability returning to Britain’s property market after the Land Registry for England and Wales said that in May, the annual drop in house prices was 15.9%, from 16.2% the month before, while month-on-month the decline was 0.2%.
Thomson Reuters contributed to this article.