The Turkish lira traded at 2.9 to the dollar late Thursday, up 1.5% compared with 2.94 lira to the dollar late Wednesday. IBM and Nike contributed the most to gains and Apple was the greatest negative weight. The Nasdaq (.IXIC) declined 0.46%, or 22.01 points, to 4,769.15.
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The index still remained below its 50-day moving average, underperforming the other major indexes as Apple closed down about 1.2 per cent. STOP-PRO: Camera maker GoPro sank $2, or 7 percent, to $27.33, after Morgan Stanley drastically cut its price target on the company, citing weak demand for GoPro’s most recent products. It has rallied around 7 percent since finding a floor at $0.6235 on September 23. The index briefly dipped into negative territory in choppy trade following the minutes’ release.
Crude oil futures extended gains, with Brent adding 1.5 percent to $53.85 a barrel, up almost 12 percent for the week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.08 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 index climbed 0.2%.
The euro rose about 0.1 percent to $1.1285 EUR= after scaling a three-week peak of $1.1328 on Thursday, while the dollar was steady against its Japanese counterpart at 119.91 yen JPY=.
“Gold’s initial rally above $US1,150 and subsequent modest sell-off reflects a deep ambivalence in the market regarding the possibility of the December Fed rate hike”, said Tai Wong, director of base and precious metals trading for BMO Capital Markets.
“It’s more a question of maybe the flight from emerging markets has been a little bit overdone and there’s a lot of investors that quickly need to get back in soon as things start looking better and that’s what we’re seeing here especially in dollar/Asia”, said Jesper Bargmann, head of trading for Nordea Bank in Singapore. The report confirms that the Fed plans to raise interest rates by the end of the year, but held off from raising rates in September because of China’s economic slowdown.
“Several members saw a risk that the additional downward pressure on inflation from lower oil prices and a higher foreign exchange value of the dollar could persist and, as a result, delay or diminish the expected upturn in inflation”, the minutes said.
Federal Reserve policymakers voiced concerns about the impact of the slowing global economy, led by China, and the stronger dollar on the United States economy last month, a Fed document showed Thursday.
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That report could nullify a lot of what Fed officials had to say about the labor market at their September meeting, in particular comments from those Fed officials who seemed inclined to raise rates before the end of the year. The data pushed out expectations on the timing of the first rate hike. The policymakers said they continued to expect both the dollar and oil prices to stabilize.
