Shares in Hong Kong sank to their lowest in roughly 2½ years.
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In Friday trading at about 5.30pm (Thailand time), London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index was up 0.5% compared with Thursday’s close. A gauge of Chinese firms listed in the city fell 3.3%.
This week retailers started disclosing their holiday-season results.
We dug deeper into the details of the goods that the U.S. exported to China, finding once again, as we did in October 2015, that the leading product leaving the U.S. for China’s ports was soybeans (over 28% of the value of all U.S. exports in October 2015, over 22% in November 2015).
Amid hopes for a solid payrolls number and relief over the steadying of the yuan, the dollar rose more than half a percent against both the euro to $1.0878 and yen to 118.34 yen on Friday.
The S&P 500 is down 121.91 points, or 6 per cent. It reached a five-year low of 6.5956 last Thursday.
Beijing launched the RMB index last month, which weights the yuan’s exchange rate against a basket of trade-related currencies, a move that will eventually loosen the currency’s link to the greenback.
In currency markets, the dollar fell to $1.0883 from $1.0917 on Thursday.
Exxon Mobil lost $1.54, or 2 percent, to $74.69 and Tesoro fell $5.41, or 5 percent, to $101.62.
Chinese stock trading halted for the day Thursday after a key index, the CSI 300, plunged 7 percent, tripping a “circuit breaker” that is meant to dampen volatility.
It will also continue to make interest rates more market-based and improve the exchange rate formation mechanism to ensure a generally steady rate for the yuan, the statement said.
The benchmark is down 11.7% year-to-date and off 40% from its peak last June. It has already lost 6% against the dollar since August. China’s stock markets have little connection to the rest of its economy, but two sharp price declines this week have focused attention on the slowdown in Chinese growth. We don’t have financial panic on Wall Street.
BEIJING -The latest trigger was currency jitters, but Thursday’s plunge in Chinese stocks was just one in a series of aftershocks from last year’s boom and bust that could shake markets for months to come. The first shut down was triggered on Monday after the CSI300 index fell more than 7 percent.
ANALYST TAKE: “Today’s U.S. jobs report may be seen to carry less significance than in recent months, particularly given the drama surrounding Chinese markets this week, but with the rate hike cycle now underway, the data will only become increasingly significant as it will largely determine whether a faster pace of tightening is necessary, or the Fed has made a mistake in initiating the process”, said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA.
Those savvy investors have reason to worry about China right now.
PAYROLLS LOOM: How U.S. stock actually open could hinge on December jobs data.
Gold prices were up 0.6% at $1,104.50 a troy ounce.
Factors behind the drop included another decline in oil prices and investor caution ahead of the weekend due to myriad uncertainties, including the Chinese economic outlook and a worsening diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
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Brent crude oil was down 1.8% at $33.31 a barrel.
