Wall Street records 7-day gains, dollar firms as sterling retreats

Oil, banks trip up European stocks

NEW YORK, May 27, (RTRS): Oil prices recovered on Friday from some of the previous day’s steep slide after investor disappointment that OPEC curbs did not go far enough, while Wall Street stocks eked out a seventh straight day of gains.

US bond yields stayed steady and gold saw big gains as a risk-off sentiment and concerns about political uncertainty took hold, with spot gold rising to its highest since May 1.

“We have had the political noise coming from Trump and the US administration and there is a certain element of uncertainty in the markets in general, which is supporting gold. Equities are also down,” analyst Carsten Menke at Julius Baer in Zurich said.

Sterling slid more than 1 percent following a poll showing the ruling Conservatives’ lead shrinking two weeks before an election.

Britain’s pound tumbled to a more than four-week low of $1.2772. It was last down 1.03 percent at $1.2806.

The US dollar, however, rose after upbeat data showed that the US economy slowed less than initially thought in the first quarter, as gross domestic product increased at a 1.2 percent annual rate.

“The GDP figure was a pleasant surprise. I don’t think markets were looking for a revision this big,” said Sireen Harajli, FX strategist at Mizuho in New York.

“It confirms or at least gives some relief to the idea that the weakness that we had seen in economic performance is likely to be transitory.”

The dollar index rose 0.2 percent, with the euro down 0.33 percent to $1.1172.

Wall Street saw another strong day for consumer stocks, offset by weakness in healthcare and real estate shares. The flattening market had threatened to break a winning streak, but the S&P 500 eked out a slightly higher day ahead of a long weekend.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.67 points, or 0.01 percent, to end the week at 21,080.28, the S&P 500 gained 0.75 point, or 0.03 percent, to 2,415.82 and the Nasdaq Composite added 4.94 points, or 0.08 percent, to 6,210.19.

In Britain, the first opinion poll since a suicide bombing killed 22 people indicated the opposition Labour Party had cut the Conservative Party’s lead to five points, with less than a fortnight to go to the parliamentary election.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said a big win would strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations for Britain to leave the European Union.

The sterling selloff was seen boding well for British exporters, however. British stock markets bucked the

downward trend and hit record highs.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index lost 0.22 percent and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.08 percent.

Meanwhile, analysts said there was caution in the markets ahead of a meeting of leaders from the world’s richest economies that was expected to expose deep divisions with US President Donald Trump over trade and climate change.

US

US stocks ended little changed on Friday ahead of the long holiday weekend, though indexes ended a two-week streak of losses and consumer shares were strong for a second day.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also eked out record closing highs, and the S&P 500 posted a seventh straight session of gains, matching a winning streak from February.

Helping the consumer staples index, Costco Wholesale rose 1.8 percent to $177.86 and was among the biggest

drivers of the S&P and Nasdaq indexes. The warehouse club operator reported results Thursday.

Trading volume, with just about 5.2 billion shares changing hands on US exchanges, was the lowest of the year. The US market will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day.

“The market is almost eerily quiet. The only thing that tends to move the markets — at least recently — is political news,” said Tim Courtney, chief investment officer of Exencial Wealth Advisors, in Oklahoma City.

Earlier in the day, a report showed that the US economy grew at a 1.2 percent pace in the first quarter, slightly more than the 0.7 percent estimated earlier. The higher reading was in line with economists’ expectations.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 2.67 points, or 0.01 percent, to 21,080.28, the S&P 500 gained 0.75 points, or 0.03 percent, to 2,415.82 and the Nasdaq Composite added 4.94 points, or 0.08 percent, to 6,210.19.

For the week, the Dow rose 1.3 percent,

the S&P 500 gained 1.4 percent and the Nasdaq added 2.1 percent.

The consumer staples index and the consumer discretionary index were both up 0.3 percent. The gains were mostly offset by declines in healthcare and real estate stocks.

Ulta Beauty jumped 3.2 percent, the second-biggest percentage gainer in the S&P, after the company raised its fullyear forecast.

Deckers Outdoor Corp ended up 18.8 percent and hit a nine-month high during the session after reporting a surprise quarterly profit.

Among the laggards, GameStop fell 5.9 percent to $22.22. The videogame retailer left its full-year earnings forecast unchanged despite beating profit estimates. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.14-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.12-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 57 new 52week highs and 8 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 97 new highs and 61 new lows.