US and European stock markets mostly retreated on Friday, dragged down by disappointing earnings from Apple and Amazon, with additional pressure coming from news of rising eurozone inflation. The US tech titans announced billions of dollars in quarterly profits on Thursday, but supply chain bottlenecks, rising prices and the global chip shortage dented performance.
Ahead of the Apple and Amazon results, US stocks had closed higher on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq striking a new all-time high.
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But they fell back at the open of trading on Friday, although the Dow later moved back into positive territory."Disappointing results from the tech giants after hours offset positive momentum from Wall Street's record close," noted. Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor.
Asian stock markets closed mixed on Friday.The dollar climbed against its main rivals, gaining 1 percent against the euro as speculation mounts the Federal Reserve will begin next week to tighten monetary policy and US government bond yields rise. Forecast-beating profits from some of the world's biggest companies have helped fan a rally across global equities thismonth, helping to temper concerns about surging inflation and the end of the era of central bank largesse.But the results from Apple and Amazon, coupled with eurozone inflation data on Friday, soured sentiment heading into theweekend break. Data out Friday showed overall the eurozone economy was so far maintaining its steady recovery from Covid-19 restrictions,growing at 2.2 percent in the third quarter of the year.
