AP – World shares were mixed yesterday after a wobbly day on Wall Street closed out a month buffeted by worries about a possible recession, inflation and rising interest rates.
Germany’s DAX gained 0.5 per cent to 14,465.06 and the CAC 40 in Paris advanced 0.5 per cent to 6,497.69. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.2 per cent higher to 7,619.76.
The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.3 per cent and the future for the Dow industrials was up 0.5 per cent.
Traders were keeping a close eye on manufacturing data for Europe and the United States (US) due yesterday.
Oil prices resumed their upward advance after falling back from nearly USD120 per barrel on Tuesday, when prices surged after the European Union agreed to block the majority of oil imports from Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine.
Prices ultimately fell on Tuesday on speculation that the OPEC plus cartel of oil producing nations might ease production limits and offset lost oil output from Russia. But as of late yesterday Asian time, benchmark US crude had climbed USD1.57 to USD116.24 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It closed down 40 cents at USD114.67 on Tuesday.
Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, picked up USD1.50 to USD117.10 per barrel.
In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 advanced 0.7 per cent to 27,457.89 after Japan’s Parliament enacted a USD21 billion extra budget to tackle soaring fuel and food prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The extra budget, for the current fiscal year that started on April 1, will fund part of a USD48 billion emergency economic package the government adopted in April. It includes subsidies to oil wholesalers to minimise the impact on consumers.
In Sydney, the S&P/ASX rose 0.3 per cent to 7,234.00. The government reported the economy expanded at a 3.2 per cent annualised rate, or 0.8 per cent quarterly rate, in the first quarter of the year.
That was slower than the 3.6 per cent growth in the last quarter of 2021 but still relatively strong, analysts said.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.4 per cent to 21,323.47 and the Shanghai Composite index shed 0.1 per cent to 3,182.16. Both indexes rose sharply on Tuesday as Shanghai eased its stringent anti-virus limits on businesses and other activities.
South Korea’s markets were closed for a holiday.
The jump of more than 50 per cent for oil prices so far this year is a big part of the high inflation sweeping the world. A report on Tuesday showed inflation in the 19 countries that use the euro currency hit 8.1 per cent in May, the highest level since records began in 1997.
Through mid-May, the S&P 500 tumbled to seven straight losing weeks for its longest such streak since the dot-com bubble was deflating two decades ago. Slowing data on the US economy has accentuated worries that high inflation will force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates so aggressively that it will cause a recession.