By Iain Withers and Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Global stocks fell on Thursday, weighed down by tepid trading in equity markets across the U.S. and other major regions, even as oil prices extended gains amid rising geopolitical tension from the Middle East conflict.
Wall Street’s main indexes pared early gains and were trading slightly down. Data released on Thursday showed rising U.S. jobless claims, indicating labor market softness, but strong service sector activity.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.50% to 41,987.51, the S&P 500 fell 0.30% to 5,692.36 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.21% to 17,887.08.
European stocks were last down 0.92% , as investors digested weak business activity survey data from the bloc. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe fell 0.44% to 841.78.
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan had earlier shed 1% overnight, largely driven by Hong Kong stocks sagging after a sizzling rally, with several markets, including mainland China and South Korea, closed for the day.
Japan’s Nikkei bucked the trend, up 2% after the country’s newly elected prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said it was not the time to raise rates after meeting central bank governor Kazuo Ueda. Bank of Japan board member Asahi Noguchi later said rates would increase cautiously and slowly.
Geopolitical tensions loomed large, after Israel bombed Beirut early on Thursday, following a year of clashes with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Oil prices gained on Thursday as concerns grew that the conflict could disrupt crude oil flows from the key exporting region, overshadowing a stronger global supply outlook.
Brent and U.S. crude futures gained nearly 4% each to $76.76 and $73.08, respectively.
“Oil’s had a good week. But in context, you’re looking at kind of low 70s versus summer levels in the 80s. So I don’t think there’s a signal from the market to say, brace yourself for major escalation… But it’s a volatile situation,” said Eren Osman, managing director of wealth management at Arbuthnot Latham.
Gold prices fell as the U.S. dollar strengthened against major curries. Spot gold dipped 0.34% on the day to $2,648.72, but remained near a record high.
In currencies, the US dollar index gained 0.3% to 101.95.. The euro was slightly down at $1.102575, and not far from Wednesday’s low of $1.10325, a level last seen on Sept. 12.
Sterling fell 1.1% to $1.31095 after Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey told the Guardian newspaper that the central bank could become a “bit more aggressive” on rate cuts if inflation continued to ease. Against the Japanese yen <JPY=EBS>, the dollar strengthened 0.14% to 146.7.
Treasury yields rose after the jobless claims data and service sector report. Two-year Treasury yields were last at 3.6765% on Thursday, while benchmark 10-year yields were at 3.821%.
Markets imply a nearly 34% chance the Fed will cut interest rates by another 50 basis points in November, compared with almost 60% last week, and have around 70 basis points of easing priced in by year-end.
(Reporting by Iain Withers in London and Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Peter Graff)
