Global Shares Follow Wall Street Lower--2nd Update
February 23 2017 - 04:15AM
Dow Jones News
By Riva Gold and Ese Erheriene
Global stocks were subdued Thursday following a modest pullback
on Wall Street, even as concerns around the French election
appeared to wane.
The Stoxx Europe 600 was off 0.1% in the early minutes of
trading, with a fall in metals prices weighing on the basic
resources sector.
Shares of Barclays PLC rose 2%, however, after the U.K. bank
swung to a full year net profit and said it was just months away
from finishing a restructuring.
The euro and French government bonds showed signs of relief
following a recent selloff after centrist Francois Bayrou announced
his offer of an alliance with independent centrist candidate
Emmanuel Macron, diminishing some investors' fears of a victory for
anti-euro candidate Marine Le Pen.
The euro was last up 0.1% at $1.0556 after snapping a
three-session losing streak. German 10-year yields were little
changed at 0.273% from 0.272% Wednesday, while French yields fell
to 1.006% from 1.025%. Yields move inversely to prices.
Investors were also digesting the latest Federal Reserve meeting
minutes, where officials suggested that lifting U.S. interest rates
"fairly soon" may be appropriate in light of an improving
economy.
Many officials continued, however, to expect a gradual pace of
rate rises and only a modest risk of an inflation overshoot.
Investors largely continued to view a March rate rise as unlikely
after the minutes, with U.S. government bonds strengthening and the
dollar ending the day with modest declines.
Banks and financials mostly declined across Asia, causing
Japan's Nikkei to end flat and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index to shed
0.3%, after briefly rising to its highest level since
September.
Yifan Xie, David Harrison and Hiroyuki Kachi contributed to this
article.
Write to Riva Gold at riva.gold@wsj.com and Ese Erheriene at
ese.erheriene@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 23, 2017 04:00 ET (09:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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