Global indices edge lower as focus shifts towards US consumer data

Global shares edged lower while US Treasury yields hovered near multi-month lows on Friday, with markets looking to US consumer data as the next test of the Federal Reserve’s dovish rates outlook.

The MSCI’S broadest gauge of global shares was down 0.1 per cent in European trading, broadly unchanged on the week, as European markets gave up some of their earlier gains. This helped counter overnight weakness in Asia, where the MSCI’S broadest index of Asia-pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.4 per cent, weighed down by a 1.1 per cent drop in China’s blue-chip index and a 0.8 per cent fall for Taiwanese shares.

The weakness in Asian shares was in a large part driven by lacklustre earnings from TSMC, Asia’s biggest firm by market capitalisation outside China, which saw its shares fall 4.1 per cent.