European stocks with their first weekly decline in a month

European stocks extended their first weekly decline in a month as investors awaited Italy’s referendum and U.S. jobs data gave a mixed picture of the economy to traders assessing prospects for higher interest rates.

Equities are sliding after capping their first monthly gain in three on bets that Trump’s policies will spur economic growth. The Stoxx 600 has advanced in six of the past 10 Decembers, posting an average gain of 0.8 percent. This week, the Stoxx 600 has tumbled 1.5 percent.

November marked one of the most decisive shifts for global financial markets in recent years, with a bevy of asset classes, from bank stocks, emerging-market bonds to hard commodities, staging sharp price swings in the space of a mere three weeks.

Investors reckon the ascent of Donald Trump presages a regime shift for the global economy, marked by trade protectionism, a stronger U.S. inflation outlook, and a higher U.S. fiscal deficit.

Most asset classes were in a relatively stable trading range in the first 8 months of the year. All that changed in the month after the Trump victory.

OPEC confounded its doubters and sent crude oil prices soaring by agreeing to its first production cuts in eight years. The deal, designed to drain record global oil inventories, overcame disagreements between the group’s three largest producers, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. Most strikingly, Russia agreed to unprecedented cuts to its own output.

The impact on the energy world was immediate: benchmark oil prices gained as much as 10 percent in New York and the share prices of energy companies around the globe jumped alongside the currencies of large exporters. Whether that’s sustained will depend on how strictly members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries stick to the agreement, something they haven’t always done in the past.