LONDON (Reuters) - World shares fell on Monday, dented by worries over a worsening trade dispute between the United States and other major economies, while oil prices gave up some of the gains made after major exporters agreed a modest production increase.
The Wall Street Journal said U.S. President Donald Trump planned to bar many Chinese companies from investing in U.S. technology firms and block additional technology exports to China.
The report hit Asian stocks overnight and in London the pan-European STOXX 600 index was down over half a percent in morning trade.
S&P500 mini futures fell as much as 0.6 percent while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.95 percent to 6-1/2-month lows. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.8 percent.
Taking a particular hit on the trade tensions was the European autos sector, falling 1.4 percent and set for its seventh straight day of losses after Trump said on Friday he aimed to hike tariffs on EU car imports by 20 percent.
MSCI’s All-Country World index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, was down 0.3 in morning trade in Europe.
As the threat of a full-blown trade war has grown, the gauge has fallen in five of the last six weeks. Last week it fell one percent - its biggest weekly drop in three months.
“We suspect the Trump team will push ahead with these policies (which will elicit reciprocal tariffs from China and the EU) until U.S. equities start to crumble and polls move against Trump,” wrote ING strategists in a research note.
A spread between approval and disapproval ratings of
