Hopes that Germany could yet form a coalition government after the Social Democrats held out the prospect of talks to break the current deadlock gave some support to European markets. But a stronger euro limited the gains, while UK shares dipped marginally as the pound moved higher against the dollar. The final scores showed:
The FTSE 100 finished down 7.6 points or 0.1% at 7409.64
Germany’s Dax rose 0.39% to 13,059.84
France’s Cac climbed 0.2% to 5390.46
Italy’s FTSE MIB edged up 0.08% to 22,416.31
Spain’s Ibex ended up 0.21% at 10,053.5
In Greece, the Athens market added 0.36% to 723.18
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has closed up 32 points or 0.14% in a shortened trading session. The US markets were helped by a strong performance from Amazon on Black Friday sales hopes.
On that note, it’s time to close for the day. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back on Monday.
Here’s the latest Barclaycard update on Black Friday, and there’s another new record.
So far there has been an 8% increase in the amount spent compared to the same day last year, and Barclaycard processed a record 998 transactions a second between 1pm and 2pm. That beats the previous record of 976 set an hour earlier.
In Greece Black Friday has brought euphoria but also protests with unions denouncing the “foreign-imported” tradition as a “black day” for workers, reports Helena Smith :
While scenes of savvy shop buyers rushing to pick up goods at bargain prices were recorded in major Greek cities, employees were just as quick to denounce Black Friday as a commercial ploy.
Protesting outside the labour ministry in Athens, the Association of Shop employees called the custom – being marked in Greece for a second year – as an affront to workers’ rights. Contracts had been openly flouted in the face of the foreign imported fiesta, said unionists, demanding that employers “pay overtime to workers and fines be imposed.”
In the main commercial hubs of Athens and Thessaloniki, protestors are gathering this afternoon to demonstrate against “the unpaid and uninsured overtime … and hunger wages.” Employers were getting away with yet more exploitation by adopting a custom that amounted to outright “fraud”.
Queues outside a department store in Thessaloniki. Photograph: Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP/Getty Images
A stronger euro has seen European markets come off their best levels, while a rise in the pound against the dollar has left the FTSE 100 lingering in negative territory. Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, said:
The prospect of political progress in Germany buoyed the euro on Friday afternoon, while the dollar continued to move lower.
The news that Angela Merkel and her CDU-CSU party are set to meet with their former Social Democrat coalition partners acted as a pick me up for the euro, which surged 0.6% to a 2 month high against the dollar, while taking another 0.3% off the pound, pushing sterling to its worst price in more than a week. These gains took the edge off the DAX’s own growth, with a 1% lunchtime surge halving to 0.5%; still, this keeps the German index above 13000, a level its struggled with for the past few sessions.
As for the dollar, its drop against the euro was joined by a 0.4% decline against the pound, with cable climbing above $1.335 to hit its best price since the start of October. There are a few things dragging the greenback lower: a pair of weaker than forecast flash manufacturing and services PMIs; Wednesday’s cautious Fed meeting minutes, which cast doubt not on a December rate rise, but the pace of any subsequent hikes; and a series of bearish notes from analysts, including those at Nomura and Morgan Stanley. Add on a Thanksgiving hangover and it was a grey Black Friday for the currency.
The FTSE, meanwhile, continued to trail its peers – not just the Eurozone, but the Dow Jones, which rose 0.2% after the bell – dipping 0.1% as the day went on. Multiple times this year the UK index has got trapped around the 7400 mark, with the FTSE facing a momentum-less run in to Christmas.
Dennis de Jong, managing director of UFX.com, said:
Donald Trump and his economic advisors will be concerned with the latest Markit survey coming in below expectations, after what has been a fairly robust upward trajectory since the start of the year.
The president has had some significant knockbacks in implementing promised infrastructure plans, and it would be no surprise to see him continue to lay the blame with foreign firms undercutting the US sector.
US industry has lost global market share in recent years, with labour-intensive, low-cost countries and knowledge-based, tech-led economies picking US jobs off at both ends of the manufacturing spectrum. Policy makers, not to mention the president himself, will be looking to address this as a priority.
US manufacturing and service sectors slip in November
US manufacturing slipped back in November but still showed a strong level of growth, according to the latest snapshot.
The IHS Market initial manufacturing PMI came in at 53.8, down from 54.6 in October and below expectations of a rise to 54.8.
The services PMI fell from 55.3 to 54.7 in November while the composite PMI dipped from 55.2 to 54.6.
Photograph: IHS Markit
Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit said:
US businesses reported another month of solid growth in November, putting the economy on course for a reasonable, though by no means stellar, fourth quarter. Current PMI readings are broadly consistent with GDP growing at an annualised rate of just over 2%.
There was also good news on hiring, with a slight uptick in employment growth meaning the surveys are indicating non-farm payroll growth of just over 200,000 in November.
Both input costs and selling price inflation picked up, suggesting the upturn is feeding though to higher price pressures, though some of the manufacturing price hikes were attributable to the short-term effects of the hurricane-related supply chain disruptions.
An upturn in new order inflows means we can expect a strong end to the year, though prospects for 2018 remain more mixed. Although expectations about the year ahead slipped lower in the service sector, future optimism hit a two-year high in manufacturing, suggesting the goods-producing sector may start to make a stronger contribution to the economy in coming months.
After a day off for Thanksgiving, US markets have started off in a positive mood.
Helped by higher oil prices and rising retail shares on Black Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 37 points or 0.16% while the S&P 500 opened 0.17% higher and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.13%. Both the S&P and Nasdaq have hit new peaks.
According to Barclaycard, there has been a 4% increase in the amount spent on debit and credit cards by 1pm today compared to last Black Friday.
That includes high street and online sales, and also other spending such as buying a pint of milk.
With sales picking up as the day progresses after a slow start, Barclaycard also says it processed a record 976 transactions a second between 12pm and 1pm. Last year’a Black Friday peak was 791 transactions per second. Paulette Rowe, managing director of Barclaycard Payment Solutions, said:
Early data suggests that shoppers have once again embraced Black Friday, with many taking advantage of the discounts on offer. The value spent is growing at a slightly slower rate than the number of transactions, indicating consumers may be opting to buy more goods at a lower price rather than investing in a handful of higher-value items. Nevertheless, it’s ‘so far, so normal’ on the high street and retailers will likely be encouraged by the results.
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