Wall St drifts; Europe afloat on upbeat data

new york — Most of Wall Street drifted higher in midday Friday trading, though a rare pullback for some of the year’s biggest winners in the stock market is tamping down the gains.

The S&P 500 was up 0.4 per cent as of 1140ET, after flipping between small gains and losses through the first hour of trading. It followed up on a mixed performance for stocks in Europe and Asia.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 186 points, or 0.7 per cent, at 25,892 while the Nasdaq composited was virtually flat and holding close to its record.

Europe received a lift from economic data. Manufacturing jumped

22 per cent month-on-month in

France in May, making up for the previous month’s fall. In Italy industrial production spiked 42 per cent during the same month. The CAC 40 in France closed up 1 per cent to 4,970.48, while Frankfurt’s DAX gained 1.2 per cent to 12,633.71. The FTSE 100 in London gained 0.8 per cent to 6,095.41.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.9 per cent to 3,383.32 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo shed 1.1 per cent to 22,290.81. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong retreated 1.8 per cent to 25,727.41.

The Kospi in Seoul lost 0.8 per cent to 2,140.25 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 declined 0.6 per cent at 5,919.20. India’s Sensex lost 0.3 per cent to 36,625.60. New Zealand, Jakarta and Bangkok retreated, while Singapore markets were closed.

“The market is concerned about the uptick in cases globally,” said Stephen Innes of AxiCorp. in a report. “Money is funnelling into perceived safe areas of the market like tech, which should hold up broader indexes to a degree.” —