The Japan Times - Stock markets recover from tech results shock

The week has seen forecast-missing results from some of the world's biggest firms including Apple, Amazon, Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet.

That has caused sharp share-price losses for some of the titans, in turn sending values tumbling for tech companies worldwide.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite opened lower Friday, but quickly followed the Dow and S&P 500 higher.

"It has been a week of mostly disappointing results from US tech giants, putting significant pressure on the Nasdaq," said market analyst Fawad Razaqzada at City Index and FOREX.com.

Amazon, which on Thursday predicted a slowdown in sales growth during the year-end holiday shopping season after reporting a drop in third quarter earnings, saw its shares slump around 10 percent as trading got under way on Friday.

Even if the Nasdaq moved higher, "there’s a good chance the tech-heavy index could fall again as we head towards the end of the week," he added.

Most European markets also pulled higher in the half hour after Wall Street began trading.

Investors have in fact been looking for data showing that the US Federal Reserve's rate hikes are beginning to slow inflation and the economy, which they hope will convince policymakers to slow or pause further interest rate hikes.

Meanwhile, the latest batch of US economic data showed prices and wages continuing to rise, and consumers also continuing to spend for the moment.

Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com said the latest figures "are unlikely to prompt the Fed to reconsider its aggressive rate hike plans."

In foreign exchange Friday, the euro was back below parity against the dollar following official data showing the US economy rebounded in the third quarter.

Surprise figures showing Europe's biggest economy Germany had also expanded in the July-September period failed to push the euro above one dollar, where it stood earlier in the week for the first time since September.

Elsewhere, the yen was down against the dollar after Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the country would spend $260 billion on a stimulus package to cushion the weak economy.

The yen has plunged to 32-year lows versus the dollar in recent weeks as Japan's central bank refuses to hike interest rates despite sky-high inflation, fuelled by soaring energy prices.

ExxonMobil on Friday reported a surge in third-quarter earnings on high oil and natural gas prices.

The US oil giant became the latest petroleum heavyweight to report stunning quarterly figures, with year-on-year profits nearly tripling to $19.7 billion on revenue soaring to $112 billion.

The company's share price dipped 0.2 percent at the start of trading.

Shares in Twitter were removed from trading on the NY stock exchange after Elon Musk completed a mega takeover of the social media giant, with critics and fans anxious to see how the planet's richest man runs one of the world's leading social media platforms.

- Key figures around 1330 GMT -

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.5 percent at 7,040.28 points

Frankfurt - DAX: DOWN 0.4 percent at 13,160.37

Paris - CAC 40: UP less than 0.1 percent at 6,247.60

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,594.15

New York - Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 32,202.82

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.9 percent at 27,105.20 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 3.7 percent at 14,863.06 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 2.3 percent at 2,915.93 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $0.9970 from $0.9965 on Thursday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.1550 from $1.1567

Dollar/yen: UP at 147.65 yen from 146.27 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 86.30 pence from 86.11 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.0 percent at $88.20 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 0.9 percent at $96.11 per barrel

burs-rl/cdw

K.Okada--JT