MILAN (Reuters) - World stocks fell and the dollar steadied on Monday as a busy week of central bank meetings and company updates started. Japanese government bonds sold off before possible monetary policy tweaks.
A man looks at an electronic board showing market indices outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, March 2, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
Disappointing updates from U.S. tech heavyweights soured the mood across stock markets, knocking European shares off their six-week highs at the open and dragging down by 0.11 percent a MSCI index that tracks shares in 47 countries .MIWD00000PUS.
“Quarterly results continue to be more than good overall, but markets appear to be particularly sensitive to the sporadic negative updates, especially from tech stocks,” said Alessandro Balsotti,” strategist and fund manager at JCI Capital.
The week features quarterly earnings from more than 140 S&P 500 companies, including Apple (AAPL.O). It will be closely watched after disappointing results from Facebook (FB.O) and Twitter (TWTR.N) shook investor belief in tech resilience.
JPMorgan reported relatively aggressive moves into “value” stocks - in particular banks - and away from shares leveraged to economic growth.
“Tech really began cracking on Tuesday before the floodgates opened on Friday,” analysts at the U.S. bank wrote in a note.
“The rotation will likely continue, benefiting value categories at the expense of momentum/tech as rates are biased higher,” they added. “Europe’s higher weighting to banks/resource will help it vs the U.S.”
In Europe, 70 companies on the STOXX 600 are due to report their updates this week with figures from big banks, including BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA), Intesa Sanpaolo (
