London share market hit by technical glitch
The London Stock Exchange was hit by a technical glitch Friday that delayed the start of trade and affected its market news service, amid outages across the world.
The LSE’s company news feed “is currently experiencing a third-party global technical issue, preventing news from being published,” it said in a statement.
“Technical teams are working to restore the service. Other services across the group, including London Stock Exchange, continue to operate as normal.”
Japan’s Nikkei tracks wall street lower
Japan’s Nikkei share average fell in choppy trade on Friday, tracking overnight Wall Street declines, although a rebound in semiconductor stocks limited losses.
The Nikkei slipped 0.43 percent to 39,952.62 by the midday break, falling below the 40,000 mark for the first time since July 2.
The broader Topix was down 0.63 percent at 2,850.47.
Australia shares plunge over 1pc
Australian shares fell more than 1 percent on Friday due to strengthening bets of an interest rate hike in the central bank’s next policy meeting, after the country added more than twice as many jobs as analysts expected in June.
The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 1.2 percent to 7,940.3, as of 0024 GMT.
The index ended 0.3 percent lower on Thursday. Australian jobs grew much higher than market expectations in June, data showed on Thursday, causing investors to slightly raise their bets for a rate hike from the Reserve Bank of Australia in August.
The top loser on the benchmark was Lifestyle Communities, down 15.3 percent, after the real estate rental company withdrew all forward-looking outlook.
Gold miner Evolution Mining fell 5.3 percent. Alumina and Life360 dropped 3.5 percent and 3 percent, respectively. The Aussie dollar was 0.07 percent stronger against the US dollar to A$0.67.
Indian shares ease off record highs
Indian shares eased off record highs hit at the open on Friday as broad-based profit booking outweighed gains in Infosys after it beat quarterly earnings estimates and raised its annual revenue forecast.
The NSE Nifty 50 was up 0.21 percent to 24,853.8, while the S&P BSE Sensex added 0.3 percent to 81,580.54 at the open, record high levels for both the indexes.
However, they reversed early gains to trade about 0.2 percent lower, as of 9:21 a.m. IST.
IT stocks gained 1.3 percent, led by a 4 percent rise in Infosys.
India’s second-largest IT services firm on Thursday raised its fiscal year 2025 revenue growth outlook to 3 percent-4 percent from 1 percent-3 percent, helped by demand recovery.
Asia shares slump on tech rout contagion
Asian shares are set to end the week on a sour note, as uncertainty across major economies added to headwinds for investors even as the global rate easing cycle gets under way.
It has been a turbulent week in markets, with a tech sell-off sparked by deepening Sino-US trade tensions, uncertainty over US President Joe Biden’s fate in the presidential race, disappointing Chinese economic data and a lacklustre third plenum outcome casting a shadow over the global mood.
In the foreign exchange market, Tokyo’s recent bouts of intervention also kept traders on edge.
“We could just be getting a taste of things to come. And that is more turbulence,” said Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at City Index. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid 1.56 percent and was headed for its worst week in three months with a nearly 3 percent loss.
Sri Lanka shares close lower
Sri Lankan shares closed lower on Thursday, dragged by losses in communication services stocks.
The CSE All-Share index settled 0.52 percent lower at 11,768.45, falling for three straight sessions.
The communication services sector fell 5 percent.
SMB Finance and Malwatte Valley Plantations were the top losers on the CSE All Share, falling 14.3 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively.
Trading volume on the CSE All-Share index fell to 21.3 million shares from 24 million in the previous session.
China stocks end higher
China stocks closed higher after struggling for direction on Thursday, as investors cautiously awaited policy news from a key leadership gathering in Beijing that is expected to end later in the day.
However, the prospect of escalating trade tensions between the US and China, which dragged broader Asian equities down, curbed overall sentiment.
China’s CSI 300 Index finished 0.6 percent higher and the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.5 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index edged up 0.2 percent.
Investor hopes are high on the final day of the four-day plenum, which seeks to inject confidence into the economy, especially after the second-quarter GDP missed forecasts due to a protracted property-sector downturn and worries about jobs. However, conflicting goals such as boosting growth while cutting debt may mean little progress toward implementing change.
Most Gulf markets gain on earnings
Most stock markets in the Gulf ended higher on Thursday as second-quarter earnings picked up, while optimism over U.S. interest rate cuts also cheered investor sentiment.
Investors are fully pricing in a 25-basis-point rate cut in September after Federal Reserve officials said on Wednesday the U.S. central bank was “closer” to cutting interest rates, as inflation has been easing close to its 2 percent target.
Monetary policy in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is usually guided by the Fed’s decisions as most regional currencies are pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index reversed early losses to close 0.3 percent higher, with Al Rajhi Bank rising 0.8 percent and the country’s biggest lender Saudi National Bank increasing 1.6 percent.