WORLD FINANCIAL MARKETS
BEIJING—Global stock markets were mostly higher Thursday following Wall Street’s decline while Chinese stocks fell after a survey showed manufacturing activity weakening.
KEEPING SCORE: France’s CAC-40 gained 0.5 percent to 5,308.60 and Germany’s DAX advanced 0.4 percent to 12,660.42. London’s FTSE 100 retreated 0.3 percent to 7,543.86. On Wednesday, the DAX gained 0.1 percent while the FTSE 100 shed 0.1 percent and the CAC-40 lost 0.4 percent. On Wall Street, futures for the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index were up just under 0.1 percent.
ASIA’S DAY: The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5 percent to 3,102.62 while Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 advanced 1.1 percent to 19,860.03. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5 percent to 25,779.34 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 added 0.2 percent to 5,738.10. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.1 percent to 2,344.61 and India’s Sensex was unchanged at 31,155.89. Benchmarks in New Zealand, Taiwan and Singapore rose while Bangkok retreated. WALL STREET: U.S. stocks fell on a sharp drop for banks and a rare loss for tech companies. That offset gains for drug makers and consumer-focused companies. Banks fell after executives from JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America said their trading businesses are having a rough second quarter. Energy companies fell with oil prices. Investors picked consumer-focused companies, drug makers and high-dividend utilities and household goods companies.
The S&P 500 lost less than 0.1 percent to 2,411.80. The Dow dropped 0.1 percent to 21,008.65.
CHINESE MANUFACTURING: The Chinese business magazine Caixin said its purchasing managers’ index declined for a third month, falling to 49.6 from April’s 50.3 on a 100-point scale on which numbers below 50 show activity contracting. That came after a separate PMI on Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics and an industry group, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, improved to 54.5 from 54.
TRUMP AND CLIMATE: President Donald Trump was preparing to announce whether he will pull the United States out of the 195-nation Paris agreement to combat global warming by reducing carbon emissions. U.S. allies around the world sounded alarms about the likely consequences of an American withdrawal. On Twitter, Trump said he still was listening to “a lot of people both ways.” Abandoning the pact would isolate the U.S. from allies who spent years negotiating the 2015 agreement. ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. oil gained 48 cents to $48.80 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract plunged $1.34 on Wednesday to close at $48.32. Brent crude, used to price international oils, advanced 45 cents to $51.21 in London. It dropped $1.48 the previous session. CURRENCY: The dollar gained to 110.95 yen from Wednesday’s 110.76. The euro edged down to $1.1246 from $1.1247.