New York, Frankfurt Fear of a flare-up of the US-China trade dispute weighed on Wall Street on Friday. Only at the close of trading did investors at least venture somewhat out of cover.
Nevertheless, the Dow Jones index of standard values hardly got off the mark and ended trading little changed at 24,465 points. The broader S&P 500 closed 0.2 percent higher at 2955 points. The index of the technology exchange Nasdaq rose 0.4 percent to 9324 points.
The security law planned by China in Hong Kong, which could put an additional strain on relations with the United States, was an upswing. Stock market traders fear another escalation with mutual punitive tariffs and further sanctions.
With the security law, the People’s Republic would bypass the parliament of autonomously managed Hong Kong. The law would target activities that are perceived as subversive, terrorist, or aimed at independence of the former British crown colony.
US President Donald Trump sharply criticized the decision and announced a “very strong” response to any move that would result in greater control by the Chinese government over the former British crown colony.
Already on Thursday, Trump had repeatedly accused China of dealing with the corona crisis using a cover-up tactic and spoke of Beijing’s “massive disinformation campaign” aimed at reducing its chances of reelection.
The stock exchanges are prone to setbacks, said strategist Andrea Cicione from the analysis company TS Lombard. “After the shock of the Covid-19 lockdown, we have to go through a recession with high unemployment, low investment and low demand, and that’s not what is currently priced in.”
Investors didn’t dare to do much given the long weekend ahead. The US stock exchanges will be closed on Monday due to a public holiday. In Europe, too, investors took profits at the end of a strong trading week. The Dax went marginally higher at 11,073 points from trading.
Focus on individual values
Stock investors threw among other things Hewlett Packard (HPE) after disappointing numbers from the depots. The shares of the information technology group fell by about eleven percent.
HPE saw larger drops in sales and earnings than expected in the past quarter. The company plans to cut costs by at least $ 1 billion by 2022 and cut the top management’s basic salaries to cushion the consequences of the virus crisis.
Papers from Foot locker lost more than eight percent. The shoe retailer scared away investors with a 43 percent drop in sales and a suspension of dividends. The loss was also significantly higher than expected after the shops had to remain closed due to the pandemic.
However, the high demand for cloud software drove Splunk up almost 13 percent. The software manufacturer benefits from the fact that more people work from home.
The Chinese online retailer Alibaba the corona pandemic had hailed business in the last business quarter. The shares listed in New York lost almost six percent.
The shares of the manufacturer of agricultural and construction machinery Deere & Co lost initial gains and closed 1.5 percent lower. The tractor producer has so far held up better than feared in the middle of the corona crisis. This was initially well received because the past business quarter is usually important, as farmers often put money into equipment before and at the start of the sowing season. However, given the pandemic, the company warned of future earnings falling.
The euro suffered from a general strength of the dollar and recently stood at $ 1.0902. The European Central Bank had set the reference rate at $ 1.0904 (Thursday 1.1000). The dollar thus cost 0.9171 (0.9091) euros. Given the new tensions between the United States and China, ten-year US government bonds rose 4/32 points to 99 21/32 points and returned 0.659 percent.
More: Read also how the German market is developing today.
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