World stocks were set for a second day of losses yesterday after an exodus of US executives from presidential business councils dealt a fresh blow to hopes of tax reform and deadly attacks in Barcelona hit shares in European tourism firms.
Investors fled into German and US Treasury bonds and bought gold for the third day in a row, as US policy uncertainty and fears of more attacks boosted the appeal of such top-notch assets.
US equity markets appeared poised for a broadly weaker open, futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes showed, though futures on the Nasdaq tech benchmark were up 0.13 per cent.
Equities worldwide were still on track to end the week in the black, as fears have ebbed of the standoff between the United States and North Korea leading to war.
But with New York’s equity indexes all tumbling on Thursday to multi-week lows, MSCI’s index of Asian shares outside Japan fell 0.6 per cent yesterday.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.9 per cent.
Losses were led by travel and leisure as investors reacted to the Barcelona attack by selling shares in airlines such as Ryanair, EasyJet and Spanish airport firm AENA.
Madrid shares fell more than one per cent. All this took MSCI’s world index, which tracks shares in 46 countries, down 0.3 per cent to one-week lows. The index has had a stellar run this year, having risen nine months in a row before August.
Equity weakness is heaping more pressure on the dollar, pushing it down 0.5 per cent against the yen, the lowest in a week and approaching one-year lows of 108.13 yen hit in April.
The euro edged up 0.2 per cent against the dollar, after tumbling on Thursday to a three-week low of $1.1662 after minutes of the European Central Bank’s July 20 policy meeting showed the bank was worried about the currency rising too much.
ING Bank saw the ECB’s euro concerns as justified and expects the bank to proceed cautiously while unwinding stimulus, in turn limiting the upside to European bond yields.
Yields have fallen in recent days following the ECB comments and amid the dash for defensive assets, with 10-year Bunds at a one-week low of 0.39 percent while 10-year Treasuries matched one-week lows hit on Thursday.
The turmoil also benefited gold, with spot prices for the metal rising 0.6 per cent to the highest since last November and on track for its second week of gains.
Brent crude futures rose 0.2 per cent.