Global share markets eased Friday after a run of six to eight days of rises as the US dollar firmed off the back of increased worries about Greece.
The financial pressures on Greece and the eurozone’s struggle to reach common position on the crisis hit European stock markets on Friday, with most ending lower.
The loss of positive sentiment spread to US markets where they ended in the red, but up for the week.
Complicating matters in the US markets was the so-called quadruple witching hour when options and other derivatives expire each month, and in this case, quarter.
Seven small US banks failed Friday night for a total cost to taxpayers of around $US1.3 billion.
Asian markets were positive, however.
But investors were spooked after the region shut by the Reserve Bank of India’s move to increase its key lending rate to 5% and its borrowing rate to 3.5%.
The RBI lifted the two key rates because inflation is now ahead of its forecast peak of 8.5% (8.89% in the year to February) and now expected to rise past 10% in the next month.
The MSCI world equity index fell 0.5% on Friday.
In US the Dow fell 37.19 points, or 0.35%, to 10,741.98. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index eased 5.93 points, or half a per cent to 1,159.90 and Nasdaq dropped 16.87 points, or 0.71%, to 2,374.41.
It ended eight straight days of gains for the Dow, which, despite that strength, never added more than 50 points in a day.
Last week it rose 1.1% for the third week of gains in a row. The S&P 500 added 0.9% and Nasdaq 0.3%.
In Paris the CAC 40 fell 0.3% to 3925.44 on Friday, while in Frankfurt the DAX lost 0.5% to finish at 5982.43.
Elsewhere Milan fell 0.4%, Brussels 0.6% and a quarter of a per cent in Switzerland.
The Stoxx 600 Index rose 0.7% for its third weekly rise in a row.
12 out of the region’s 18 major markets rose: London was up 0.4% and the DAX advanced 0.6%.
France’s CAC 40 dropped 0.1% and Greece lost 3.1% for the first loss in three weeks with fears again about the country’s weakening financial strength.
London’s FSE 100 index managed to defy the trend, adding 0.1% to 5650.13, the highest since late June 2008.
Driving the index higher was the surprise news from Lloyds Banking Group, which said it expected to return to profit this year after suffering a loss of more than 7 billion euros in 2009.
That helped other financials to rise.
But over the weekend the head of the opposition Conservatives, David Cameron, surprised by committing his party to a bank tax if they won the election now expected for early May.
He said the tax would be similar to that proposed in the US by president Obama, a move that will send tremors through the banks and other financial stocks tonight.
In Asia markets rose for a fourth week.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 1.4% over the week, with Tokyo’s Nikkei up 0.7%, South Korea’s Kospi up 0.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.8% and Shanghai jumped 1.8%.
New York-traded Indian shares fell the most in six weeks on Friday in the wake of the lift in rates.
In Australia the ASX200 index was up 9.1 points, or 0.2%, at 4872.2, while the All Ordinaries climbed 12.4 points, or 0.3%, at 4890.1.
