European shares decline, dollar consolidates

Stocks in Europe strengthened a little in Friday’s morning session, but were still heading for their biggest weekly fall of 2015. A second week of stronger oil prices helped bring a two month rally in equities to an end, while further uncertainties over Greece also added pressure.

The German DAX index was a little more than 0.5 per cent higher, the CAC 40 was nearly 0.6 per cent in the green while the Euro Stoxx 50 added around 0.3 per cent.

However, the UK’s leading share index edged lower on hawkish comments from Bank of England governor Mark Carney. The FTSE 100 declined more than 0.2 per cent when Mr Carney suggested that “the next move in interest rates is likely up”.

The British pound moved higher following these rate comments and staged a slight recovery from its fresh one-week lows when compared to the greenback. Pressure had been heaped on sterling from a number of soft economic data reports coming out of the UK and the rising political tension in the run-up to the general election on May 7th.

The US dollar looked set to record its second consecutive week of losses following the US Federal Reserve’s dovish comments, despite regaining some strength towards the end of the week after labour data came in stronger than expected.

Initial jobless claims figures on Thursday showed that the number of individuals filing for jobless benefits fell by 9,000, a much higher decline than the drop of 1,000 that analysts had been expecting.

Also adding to the dollar demand were comments from Fed officials, who have been keen to stress that the central bank should remain on track to raise interest rates later this year.

The dollar index recovered from a three-week low but looked to record a 0.5 per cent drop this  week, after declining over two per cent in the week prior.