Stock market today: Global stocks are mixed as Wall St closes out another winning week

HONG KONG (AP) — European markets opened with gains and Asian benchmarks retreated Monday as U.S. stocks rose to close out their latest week of gains.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% and those for the S&P 500 rose 0.2%.

France’s CAC 40 added 0.4% to 8,271.36 as investors awaited the first round of voting in French elections next weekend. Germany’s DAX advanced 0.6% to 18,268.58. Britain’s FTSE 100 was 0.4% higher at 8,271.36.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 0.5% to 38,804.65, making it the only major Asian benchmark to post gains on Monday.

The yen weakened to 159.75 per dollar. The dollar closed at 159.77 yen on Friday.

Minutes of the Bank of Japan’s latest policy meeting released on Monday put the yen under fresh pressure as it indicated that “Any change in the policy interest rate should be considered only after economic indicators confirm that, for example, the CPI inflation rate has clearly begun to recover and medium to long-term inflation expectations have increased.”

Meanwhile, it was reported that Masato Kanda, a deputy minister at Japan’s Finance Ministry, said officials were prepared to step in to support the currency at any time.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell less than 0.1% to 18,027.71, while the Shanghai Composite lost 1.2% to 2,963.10.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.8% to 7,733.70. South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.7% to 2,764.73.

On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 0.2% to 5,464.62, but remained near its all-time high on Tuesday and closed its eighth winning week in the last nine. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose less than 0.1% to 39,150.33, while the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2% to 17,689.36.

Nvidia dragged back into the market after falling 3.2%. The company’s shares have risen more than 1,000% since October 2022 on frenzied demand for its chips, which are powering much of the world’s move into artificial intelligence technology, and it briefly replaced Microsoft this week as the most valuable company on Wall Street.

But nothing grows forever, and Nvidia’s declines over the past two days sent its stock to its first losing week in nine.

Most of the rest of Wall Street was relatively quiet, outside of a few outlying areas.

In the bond market, US Treasury yields initially fell after a report suggested that business activity among countries that use the euro currency is weaker than economists expected. Concerns are already high for the continent ahead of French elections that could further rattle financial markets.

The weak business activity report dragged down yields in Europe, which initially put pressure on Treasury yields. But US yields recovered much of those losses after another report said later in the morning that US business activity may be stronger than previously thought.

Overall manufacturing growth hit a 26-month high, according to S&P Global’s preliminary reading of activity among US manufacturing and services businesses. Perhaps most importantly for Wall Street, this strength can occur without a concomitant increase in pressure on inflation.

The Federal Reserve is in a precarious place, where it is trying to slow the economy through high interest rates just enough to reduce the high inflation to 2%. The trick is that it wants to lower interest rates at the right time. If you wait too long, the economic slowdown can turn into a recession. If it is too early, inflation may re-accelerate.

In other deals Monday, U.S. benchmark crude rose 15 cents to $80.88 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude added 22 cents to $84.55 a barrel.

The euro rose to $1.0717 from $1.0693.

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