TOKYO (AP) — Global stocks were broadly lower on Friday, following a decline on Wall Street, with a drop in Nvidia shares further pushing prices lower.
France’s CAC 40 fell 0.1% to 7,661.64, Germany’s DAX lost nearly 0.2% to 18,227.44, and Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.3% to 8,251.91.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.2%.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei stock average closed little changed at 38,596.47, down less than 0.1 percent, after the government said inflation rose to 2.5 percent in May from 2.2 percent in April, the first increase in three months.
“There is another month’s worth of data before the Bank of Japan’s next meeting, and the bank will be watching closely to see whether the market is too biased towards a rate hike in September this year,” said Yep Jun Rong, market analyst at IG.
The Japanese yen was trading at 158.88 yen against the dollar, near a 34-year low, down from Thursday’s close of 158.92 yen.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday added Japan to its watch list for possible currency manipulation, but concluded in its annual report that the major trading partner has not distorted its currency for profit.
The dollar has remained strong against many other currencies over the past few years after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to curb inflation. With Japan’s base interest rate at nearly zero, that difference has weakened the value of the yen against the dollar, sparking fears in Tokyo that the exchange rate could fluctuate.
The People’s Bank of China has been pricing the yuan higher than expected to halt its slide. The yuan was set at 7.1196 to the U.S. dollar, up from 7.1192 on Thursday, as traders had expected the yuan to weaken further.
The central parity rate is based on a weighted average of prices quoted by market makers before the interbank market opens each business day.
Chinese tech stocks fell after Nvidia fell overnight, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index down 1.7% to 18,028.52 and the Shanghai Composite down 0.2% to 2,998.14.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3% to 7,796.00. South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.8% to 2,784.26.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 was down 0.3% from the all-time high it reached before the financial markets closed on Wednesday. The Nasdaq Composite Index also pulled back from its all-time high, dropping 0.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8%, beating market expectations.
Nvidia gave up early gains to fall 3.5%, putting an eight-week streak of gains in jeopardy. The company’s computer chips are fueling a move toward artificial intelligence that backers say will lead to explosive growth in productivity and profits, and its shares have more than tripled last year and are up 164% already this year.
In other trading early Friday, benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 6 cents to $81.23 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while the international standard Brent crude lost 11 cents to $85.60 a barrel.
The euro fell to $1.0687 from $1.0702.
