Global Financial Market Overview

On Thursday, August 30, 2018 U.S. stocks ended their four-day winning streak as risk reduction ahead of the long holiday weekend accelerated on growing trade anxieties. While analysts expected the NAFTA talk with Canada will not finalized on Friday, August 31 and the trade war with China still worried investors.

Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 25,986.92, sank 137.65 (-0.53%)

S&P Index closed at 2,901.13, decreased 12.91 (-0.44%)

Nasdaq Composite closed at 8,088.36 decreased 21.32 (-0.26%)

 

European stocks finished Thursday’s session in the red, as investors monitored corporate earnings and a looming deadline for a U.S.-Canada trade deal.

Stoxx Europe 600 closed at 385.36 decreased 0.3%

Germany’s DAX Performance Index closed at 12,494.24, sank 67.44 (-0.54%)

France’s CAC 40 Index closed at 5,478.26, decreased 23.27 (-0.42%)

London’s FTSE 100 closed at 7,516.03, decreased 47.18 (-0.62%)

 

Asia markets surrendered earlier gains and were broadly down on Thursday, with Chinese markets fixed firmly on risks from the Sino-US trade war and taking little comfort from an apparent easing in business tensions in North America and Europe.

The ASX 200 ended the trading day in flat territory and closed at 6,351.80, lower 0.40 or 0.01%

South Korea’s Kospi also ended down 1.68 or 0.07% to close at 2307.35

The Nikkei 225 closed 0.09% lower, or 21.28, to close  at 22,869.50

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index traded down by 0.89%, or 252.39, to end at  28164.05

The Shanghai composite lost its earlier gains to close lower by 1.14 %, or 31.56, to close around 2,737.74

Shenzhen composite ended at 1,467.182 after falling by around 1.484%

Singapore stocks ended 0.6% lower, with the Straits Times Index falling 18.2 to 3,225.72.

 

New York Gold Future slid below key support of $1,200 an ounce on Thursday, undermined by a firmer dollar following strong U.S. economic data.

COMEX decreased 6.5 USD or 0.54% for December delivery to close at 1,205.00 USD/ounce

Platinum for October decreased 4.8 USD or 0.6% to close at 791.8 USD/ounce

Palladium for December rose 6.4 USD or 0.7% to close at 960.70USD/ounce

 

WTI Oil Crude rose on Thursday, extending gains on growing evidence of disruptions to crude supply from Iran and Venezuela and after a fall in U.S. crude inventories.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for October delivery increased by 74 cent or 1.1% to close at 70.25 USD/bbl

Brent crude for October delivery increased 63 cent or 0.8% to close at 77.77 USD/bbl

 

United States Dollars rose on Thursday for the first time in five days, as risk appetite eased and stocks gave up gains notched early in the week, amid nagging concerns about U.S. threats to impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports next month.

USD weakened against JPY at 111.04 JPY to trade from 111.69 JPY, but strengthen against Swiss Franc at 0.9694 SFR from 0.9713 SFR.

Euro weakened to trade at 1.1664 USD from 1.1698 USD.

Pound weakened to trade at 1.3012 USD from 1.3020 USD, as well as AUD weakened to close at 0.7256 USD from 0.7299 USD.