A man checks stock index through his smartphone at a brokerage house in Beijing, Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. Asian stock markets were mixed Monday following Wall Street's losing week as investors looked ahead to a week of data releases and public comments by central bankers. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Republished November 13, 2017 - 5:19 AM
Original Publication Date November 12, 2017 - 7:51 PM
BEIJING - Global stocks fell Monday as investors became more cautious after several market indexes hit record highs in the past week.
KEEPING SCORE: London's FTSE 100 fell 0.2 per cent to 7,418 amid concerns about the stability of the country's government as Brexit talks fail to progress. France's CAC 40 was 0.9 per cent lower at 5,332 and Germany's DAX shed 0.8 per cent to 13,017. On Wall Street, futures for the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index, which hit a record on Wednesday last week, were both down 0.3 per cent.
ASIA'S DAY: The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.4 per cent to 3,447.84 while Tokyo's Nikkei 225 fell 1.3 per cent to 22,380.99. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.2 per cent to 29,182.18 and Seoul's Kospi shed 0.5 per cent to 2,530.35. Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 retreated 0.1 per cent to 6,021.80 and India's Sensex lost 0.4 per cent to 33,164.85. Benchmarks in New Zealand and Jakarta advanced while Taiwan and Singapore fell.
GE DIVIDEND: General Electric said it is slashing its dividend in half as investors gathered in Boston, where Chairman and CEO John Flannery is expected to lay out a significant retooling of the U.S. conglomerate. GE's quarterly dividend is being cut to 12 cents per share, from 24 cents, starting next month. Shares in GE were up 2.2 per cent in premarket trading.
WEEK AHEAD: Central banker Haruhiko Kuroda of Japan inaugurates a data-heavy week with a speech Monday, followed Tuesday by public comments from Janet Yellen of the United States, Mark Carney of Britain and Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank. The United States reports inflation and retail sales on Wednesday, while Japan reports factory output. U.S. factory output data follow on Thursday.
ANALYST'S TAKE: "We are likely to see October U.S. inflation dipping again (as hurricane effects drop out), confounding thoughts of a medium-term pickup in inflation as the economy tightens further," Rob Carnell of IG said in a report. "As well as inflation, the week ahead offers glimpses into recent economic growth in the G7. Individual eurozone country GDP figures will start to emerge this week, with the bulk of them likely to support the prevailing view that eurozone growth is pretty strong. Japanese GDP, however, is due a pullback from the 2Q surge."
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude rose 6 cents to $56.81 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 43 cents on Friday. Brent crude, used to price international oils, shed 7 cents to $63.45 in London. It lost 39 cents the previous session.
CURRENCY: The pound was the big mover on Monday, as investors worried that British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a rebellion within her own party over the handling of the Brexit talks. The currency was down to $1.3097 from $1.3190 on Friday. The dollar fell to 113.30 yen from Friday's 113.21 yen and the euro advanced to $1.1656 from $1.1643.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017