Sharemarkets had a very good month in July, but compared to the recoveries seen in commodities, equities were more modest and have only halved, in some cases, the falls of May and June.
Despite the improvement, sentiment will be tested further by the reaction to the very mixed US economic growth figures last Friday and this Friday’s US jobs figures for July.
Here’s a wrap of how some of the major markets went.
Wall Street ended its best month in a year after the second quarter earnings season entered its final week with a group of strong results that offset the impact of a string of poor economic figures.
The Dow dropped 1.22 points Friday to end at 10,465.94, the The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose half a point to 1,101.58 and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 3 points to 2,254.70.
While the major indexes each posted 7% gains for the month, the rises came on low volume and followed the near 14% drop over May and June.
For July the Dow rose 7.1%, the S&P 500 6.9% and the Nasdaq also added 6.9%.
For the week, the Dow rose 0.4%, the S&P 500 lost 0.1% and the Nasdaq eased 0.7%.
European markets notched up the first monthly gain in four months.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares fell 0.3% on Friday and ended up 5% for July, the first rise since last March.
The Stoxx 600 index was up 4.9% for the month.
Across Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 ended down 1.1% on Friday, Germany’s DAX rose 0.2%, but France’s CAC fell by the same amount.
The Footsie fell 1% for the week, but was up 6.9% for July and the DAX was up 3.1%.
In Asia, Hong Kong stocks fell Friday, ending days of increases, but the Hang Seng index had its best monthly performance in the last 10 months with an increase of 4.5%, the biggest rise since last September.
The Shanghai market ended with a fall of 0.6% on Friday, but that was still just short of its highest close for two months on Thursday.
Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 1.6% on Friday, 1.1% for the week, but was up 1.6% for the month.
The index rose 10% in July, cutting the year’s loss to just under 20%.
In Australia, the ASX200 Index ended down 30.6 points, or 0.7% on Friday, at 4493.5, while the All Ordinaries Index dropped 28.8 points, or 0.6%, to 4507.4.
The ASX200 index was up 0.8% for the week, making it four weekly advances in a row.
The market is also up about 4.5% for the month, the first monthly gain in four.
