Global shares fall amid Fed rate concerns

Global shares fell for the first time in three days on Tuesday, after comments from two Federal Reserve officials in the United States injected a note of caution over its rate outlook, knocking equities, commodities and other assets.

Dublin

The Iseq overall index was flat on the day with low volumes, as stocks saw the early 2023 momentum run out of steam.

Among the financial names, Bank of Ireland finished the day up 2 per cent, while AIB climbed 3 per cent.

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In property, Cairn Homes was little changed after updating the market on Monday that it grew revenue by 46 per cent last year, and has entered 2023 with its “largest ever forward sales pipeline” of more than 1,100 new homes.

Glenveagh Properties recovered some of the ground it lost last week after it cut the number of suburban housing units it expects to deliver in 2023 due to planning delays. It finished the day up 1.6 per cent.

Staying with construction, insulation specialist Kingspan was down 2.5 per cent, giving back some of the gains it has made since the turn of the year.

Elsewhere, Ryanair was flat on the day, holding on to recent large gains after it boosted its full-year profit forecast to as high as €1.425 billion last week. It originally predicted that profits for its financial year, which ends on March 31st, would land between €1 billion and €1.2 billion.

London

The FTSE 100 ended the day down 0.5 per cent, with most stocks in the red.

Apart from some housebuilders that are due to report in the coming days, everything was down by margins from 0.5 per cent to 2 per cent.

Online retailer Boohoo was one of the few good news stories on the index, as post-Christmas trading in London began in earnest following a rail strike last week.

Among individual stocks, Euronav dropped 18.8 per cent in earlier trading after Oslo-listed rival Frontline said it had terminated a $4.2-billion (€3.91 billion) deal to merge with the Belgian oil tanker operator.

German utility Uniper slid 3.5 per cent after the firm said its chief executive and chief operating officer will resign from the management board this year after the German government takes majority control.

Europe

European shares slid amid a broad-based retreat as investors remained nervous. The pan-European Stoxx 600 dipped 0.7 per cent after hitting its highest level in eight months in the previous session.

Rate-sensitive technology stocks dropped 1.1 per cent. Industrials weighed on the Stoxx 600 index, along with pharmaceutical majors such as Novo Nordisk and Novartis that dropped more than 1.5 per cent, each.

After a rough 2022, Europe’s Stoxx 600 has risen nearly 4.8 per cent since the start of this year, due to growing hopes that the recession in the eurozone will be milder than expected and central banks will ease their aggressive monetary policy stance.

New York

Wall Street’s main indexes edged higher, boosted by gains in Microsoft and Amazon, as investors assessed commentary from US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell that steered clear of the monetary policy outlook.

At 10.18am eastern time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.33 per cent, the S&P 500 was up 0.42 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.7 per cent.

Microsoft rose 1.2 per cent after a report stated the software company was in talks to invest $10 billion in ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

The gains pushed up the S&P 500 information technology sector 0.3 per cent, while a 1.6 per cent rise in Amazon boosted the consumer discretionary sector.

Boeing dipped 1.3 per cent, pressuring the Dow Jones, on a report that Morgan Stanley downgraded the US planemaker’s rating.

Broadcom fell 3.3 per cent on a report that Apple plans to replace the former’s chip from its devices with an in-house design in 2025.

Additional reporting: agencies