European shares edged higher on Friday while a leading US exchange froze, causing chaos shortly before Wall Street was due to kick off a shortened trade day following this week’s Thanksgiving break.
DUBLIN
Home builders performed well on the Irish market on a quiet end to November.
Cairn Homes added 2.16 per cent to close at €2.04 while Glenveagh Properties climbed 2.2 per cent to €1.954.
Banks had a more mixed time, AIB added 1.09 per cent to close at €8.85 while its peer, Bank of Ireland, edged up just 0.3 per cent to €15.96.
READ MORE
PTSB shed 1.29 per cent to close at €3.05.
Among bigger stocks, airline Ryanair was down 1.05 per cent at €28.22.
Insulation group, Kingspan, added 2.07 per cent to end the day at €73.85.
LONDON
London’s FTSE 100 snapped a four-month winning streak on Friday despite recording a weekly gain after a tax-heavy UK budget lifted investor sentiment.
The globally focused FTSE 100 added 0.3 per cent, logging its strongest weekly gain in over a month, while the midcap FTSE 250 added 0.3 per cent, having a mild monthly drop.
Hospitality firm Whitbread plunged 11.5 per cent to 2,490 pence sterling as the company warned the this week’s UK budget £40 million to £50 million.
Among other moving stocks, Burberry fell 2.9 per cent to 1,139.5p after JPMorgan downgraded the luxury firm’s rating to “underweight.”
Mitchells & Butlers jumped 11.5 per cent after the pub and restaurant operator reported annual profit above expectations.
EUROPE
European shares reversed earlier losses and were last modestly higher as rising bets of a Fed rate cut and progress toward a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire buoyed sentiment.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 3.02 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 1,003.72.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index rose 0.23 per cent, while Europe’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index gained 5.58 points, or 0.24 per cent.
Markets actually slid earlier in the day, while remaining poised for a fifth monthly gain.
European banks were the biggest drag on Friday. Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) fell a further 2.2 per cent following Thursday’s news that it is facing an investigation in Milan, related to its takeover of Mediobanca.
The sector has climbed nearly 4 per cent this week, and is set for its best weekly performance since early August, as investors piled into the stocks amid concerns over tech valuations that drove a global sell-off this month.
Commodity-linked stocks gained, with energy and stocks and miners up 0.3 per cent each, tracking higher oil and metal prices.
Investors refrained from making major bets heading into the weekend, with a holiday-shortened U.S. market session on Friday.
United States
US stocks tracked higher in a truncated, post-holiday session on Friday that was complicated by an outage at an exchange operator as investors closed the book on a tumultuous month before kicking off the holiday shopping season.
The three major US stock indexes were modestly higher, benchmark Treasury yields strengthened, and gold advanced.
All three indexes appear set to log gains for the holiday-shortened week, on growing optimism that the US Federal Reserve – the country’s central bank – will cut interest rates at its December meeting.
The indexes are on track for November losses, however, as risk appetite was soured during the month by the longest-ever US government shutdown and simmering worries over inflated tech stock valuations.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world’s largest exchange operator, caused mayhem in financial markets when trading froze on its currency platform. The freeze affected futures, foreign exchange, commodities, treasuries and stocks. The issue was resolved with less than an hour to go before the US market opened. – Additional reporting: Bloomberg, Reuters
