The broader NSE Nifty was down 0.06 percent at 8,585.48 and 0.94 percent for the week, heading for its biggest weekly loss since the week ended on June 24.
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At 8am Mountain Time, or 3pm United Kingdom time, the chair of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen will deliver her keenly anticipated speech at the 2016 Jackson Hole symposium. This summer has been eerily quiet, compared to a year ago when the People’s Bank of China surprised with yuan devaluation.
SALES SLUMP: Dollar General dropped $12.95, or 14 percent, to $78.84 after its earnings and revenue fell short of analysts’ forecasts. Japan’s Nikkei 225 sold off 0.89%.
Chinese shares, however, recouped the previous session’s losses, with some traders attributing the gains to regulators’ denial that insurance money is exiting the market.
The MSCI All-Country World index was down 0.1 per cent by 0817 GMT, after slipping to its lowest level since August 9, while the pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.2 per cent.
Currently, USD/JPY is down -0.1% at 100.37, EUR/USD up +0.2% at $1.1292 and AUD/USD up +0.3% at $0.7634.
US stocks were modestly lower on Thursday, weighed down by a drop in healthcare and consumer companies.
Risk markets are wary of Yellen hinting at a near-term interest rate hike, which could divert some of the massive liquidity that has underpinned global markets.
The waiting game left many markets sluggish all week.
IG’s market analyst Angus Nicholson said in a morning note that there was “fear evident in markets that Janet Yellen is going to be surprisingly hawkish and talk up a September hike”. Recent official rhetoric expects a rate increase sometime this year, but the U.S yield curve is not pricing that in at the moment.
Also on the Jackson Hole schedule is a meeting Thursday led by Esther George, head of the Kansas City Fed, with Fed Up, a coalition thats seeking to change how the Feds regional banks operate and how they choose their top officials.
Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, Channel Islands, interpreted the officials’ comments to suggest that support is growing among Yellen and others on the Fed’s policymaking board for another rate increase as early as next month.
But uncertainty pulled the U.S. currency lower, with the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major peers, slipping 0.1 per cent to 94.654. Germany’s DAX was 0.2 percent lower at 10,505.52.
USA crude oil slipped 0.1 per cent to $47.27 a barrel after rising 56 cents, or 1 per cent, on Thursday.
The PBOC on Friday set the yuan’s daily reference rate against the USA dollar at 6.6488, stronger by 114 basis points, or 0.17 per cent, from Thursday’s fix.
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Global markets mark time ahead of Yellen speech: Caution prevails ahead of a speech by Fed Chair Janet Yellen, which limited movements across global markets on Friday.
