U.S. Stocks Mixed With Dollar as Oil Stabilizes: Markets Wrap

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fluctuated, while Treasuries and the dollar edged lower as a week dominated by crude’s tumble into a bear market ended with a tone of caution prevailing.

The S&P 500 Index looked to finish the five days virtually where it began, as rallies in health-care and tech shares offset a rout in energy producers. Crude was on track for a fifth weekly retreat. The dollar headed for its first weekly gain since May after Federal Reserve speakers did little to alter projections for the path of interest rates. Shares in the U.K. headed for a fourth day of losses with Brexit negotiations under way a year after the nation voted to leave the European Union.

Read more about British markets one year after the Brexit vote

Weakness in energy prices were the theme of the week, with oil in New York and London dropping into a bear market on concerns that expanding supply in the U.S. and Libya will counter output cuts from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Europe focused on the negotiations to untangle Britain from the union, while U.S. investors rotated back into technology shares two weeks after pummeling the high flying group.

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Here are some upcoming events investors are watching:

• Friday’s session in the U.S. will probably be one of the busiest of the year for equity traders as the annual Russell reshuffle is set to take effect. The FTSE Russell’s rebalancing of stock indexes reliably boosts trading, though it rarely triggers big price swings in the market.
• James Bullard, Loretta Mester and Jerome Powell cap a busy week for speeches from Fed policy makers. Bullard told the Wall Street Journal the rate trajectory the FOMC has laid out seems “unnecessarily aggressive” and the balance-sheet unwind should start sooner rather than later.
• U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will make a statement to the British parliament on Monday when details of her proposal to safeguard the residency rights of European citizen who currently live in the U.K. will be published by the government. 

Here are the main moves in markets:

Stocks

• The S&P 500 Index was unchanged at 2,434.50 at 10:06 a.m. in New York. It’s up less than one point in the five days.
• The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 0.4 percent. The gauge is down by the same amount this week.
• The FTSE 100 Index was down 0.2 percent, heading for a 0.5 percent weekly decline, its third straight five-day drop.
• The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 0.3 percent.

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude added 0.3 percent to $42.85 a barrel, cutting its loss this week to 4.7 percent as it fell into a bear market.
• Gold futures rose 0.7 percent to $1,258.40 an ounce, for a third day of gains. 

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1 percent. It’s still up 0.4 percent for the week, after rallying Monday and Tuesday on Fed rate-hike expectations.
• The pound strengthened 0.3 percent to $1.2718, paring its drop this week to 0.5 percent. The euro climbed 0.3 percent to $1.1182.
• The yen rose less than 0.1 percent to 111.28 per dollar. 

Bonds

• The yield on 10-year Treasuries added one basis point to 2.16 percent. It’s virtually unchanged for the week.
• U.K. 10-year gilt yields rose one basis point to 1.03 percent, led by losses in shorter-dated securities as U.K. money markets push odds of a rate hike by the end of 2017 over sixty percent.

--With assistance from Fox Hu and Adam Haigh

To contact the reporter on this story: Eddie van der Walt in London at evanderwalt@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Anstey at canstey@bloomberg.net, Robert Brand, Jeff Sutherland