World shares retreat as tech stocks pull Wall St lower

Bangkok: Shares were mostly lower in Europe following a retreat Friday in Asia after losses for influential technology stocks pulled Wall Street benchmarks lower. US futures edged higher and oil prices advanced.

Germany’s DAX edged 0.1 per cent lower and the CAC 40 in Paris was little changed at 7,965.31. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.4 per cent to 9,696.82.

The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.3 per cent and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2 per cent. In Asian trading, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.2 per cent to 50,276.37. China reported that its exports contracted 1.1 per cent in October, as shipments to the United States dropped by 25 per cent from a year earlier.

But economists expect Chinese exports to recover after US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed last week to de-escalate the trade war between the two largest economies.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.9 per cent to 26,241.83, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.3 per cent to 3,997.56.

South Korea’s Kospi shed 1.8 per cent to 3,953.76 and Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.9 per cent. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 skidded 0.7 per cent to 8,769.70. Concerns over technology industries have helped drive markets up and down all week.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 1.1 per cent and the Dow industrials declined 0.8 per cent. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.9 per cent. The biggest weights on the market included Nvidia, which dropped 3.7 per cent, and Microsoft, which fell 2 per cent.

Their huge values give them outsized influence over the market’s direction. Other big stocks dragging down the market included Amazon, which slumped 2.9 per cent. Elon Musk won a shareholder vote on Thursday that would give the Tesla CEO stock worth $1 trillion if he hits certain performance targets over the next decade.

The company’s shares, already up 80 per cent in the past year, fell but then rose in after-hours trading, ending at $445.91.