Global markets little changed as investors seek interest rate clues

Global stock indexes were mostly little changed on Tuesday while US Treasury yields eased as investors looked for more clues on how soon the Federal Reserve may start cutting interest rates.

Dublin

Euronext Dublin was up 0.25 per cent at close of business but it underperformed many of its international peers.

Dalata – the biggest hotel operator in the State – was up 0.8 per cent as its share price climbed above pre-Covid levels for the first time since the end of the pandemic.

“There has been a big push on in Dalata over the past couple of weeks,” a trader noted. “They are obviously making good inroads in their UK market share as well.”

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Elsewhere conglomerate DCC was up 0.7 per cent ahead of results on Wednesday.

Ryanair enjoyed a good rally to finish the day up 1 per cent, which was largely in line with other European airlines. EasyJet was a standout underperformer as it dipped 0.2 per cent, but Aer Lingus parent International Airlines Group, Lufthansa and Air France were all up.

Elsewhere, home builder Glenveagh Properties was down 1.3 per cent, while, among the financial names, AIB and Bank of Ireland were also a bit weaker. Insulation specialist Kingspan was also a bit weaker.

London

The FTSE 100 had a bumper session, buoyed by an excellent performance from BP, one of the capital’s biggest companies.

The oil firm saw its shares up nearly 5.5 per cent on the day after it pleased investors with more shareholder returns and a higher-than-expected profit.

BP is the fifth largest company on the FTSE 100, so its performance helped lift the index, which closed up 0.9 per cent.

The British government moved a step closer to selling shares in NatWest to the public as the bank said the offering could happen as soon as June. NatWest was nationalised by the then government of Gordon Brown during the financial crisis.

Since then, the government has slowly sold down its shares in the lender and now owns about a third of the bank. Shares in NatWest closed the day up 1.29 per cent.

Europe

At the end of the day in Europe, Frankfurt’s Dax index was 0.76 per cent higher, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed up 0.65 per cent.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 nations, gained 0.24 per cent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.42 per cent, while Europe’s Stoxx 600 index rose 0.55 per cent.

New York

Wall Street’s main indexes were mixed in choppy early trading as investors scrutinised big-ticket earnings and awaited commentary from policymakers for clues on the timing of the Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate cut.

GE HealthCare Technologies gained 11.7 per cent after the medtech firm posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, driving the S&P 500 healthcare sector up by 0.4 per cent, to an all-time high.

However, Eli Lilly reversed earlier gains and lost 1 per cent, even after forecasting 2024 profit above estimates.

The materials index gained 1.6 per cent, as chemicals firm DuPont de Nemours jumped 6.7 per cent after beating fourth-quarter profit estimates, announcing a new $1 billion share-repurchase programme and hiking its dividend.

Weighing on the tech-heavy Nasdaq, chip stocks Nvidia and Broadcom fell more than 2 per cent, sending the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index down 1.9 per cent.

The KBW Regional Banking index dropped 0.8 per cent as New York Community Bancorp plummeted 15.3 per cent, stretching a sell-off since the lender reported a surprise quarterly loss last week.

Airline stocks jumped after Frontier surprise break-even earnings, aiding a 2.4 per cent advance in the Dow Jones Transport Average.

Palantir Technologies jumped 25 per cent after forecasting upbeat annual profit.

Gartner lost 2.9 per cent after the research and advisory firm forecast annual results below estimates. – Additional reporting: Agencies

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