The Eurozone started the fourth quarter with the weakest growth momentum since April
On Thursday, Wall Street stocks were mostly higher, with the S&P 500 beating another record high. The index rose 0.3% while the Nasdaq gained 0.6%. On the data front, initial jobless claims fell to a new pandemic low of 290,000 last week, down 6,000 from the previous week. On the negative side, IBM stocks drop nearly 10% to leave the Dow Jones just barely in the red for the day. Facebook and Twitter declined in extended trading after Snap said its advertising business declined due to Apple’s privacy changes.
Asian markets were mixed on Friday but managed to erase early losses due to upbeat news from China Evergrande, as the embattled developer made a bond payment to avert a default. Against this backdrop, Evergrande stocks rebounded by 3% following a sell-off seen a day earlier.
In Europe, stocks opened lower ahead of the weekend to reverse higher despite mixed economic data. Eurozone manufacturing PMI arrived at 58.5 in October versus 57.0 expected. Meanwhile, the services PMI dropped to 54.7 versus 55.5 expected. As such, the Eurozone started the fourth quarter with the weakest growth momentum since April.
In currencies, the dollar is back on the defensive following a short-lived upside correction witnessed on Thursday. The EURUSD pair still remains below the 1.1670 intermediate resistance, however, lacking upside impetus despite a broad-based retreat in the greenback. Later today, PMI data out of the United States could affect short-term dynamics in the pair. If the figures exceed expectations, dollar demand could reemerge and thus take the pair back into the negative territory.
