U.S. Stocks lower on JPMorgan Chase Earnings Report

European Shares post Weekly Losses amid Wall-Street sell-off

European shares dropped on Friday, heading the major European stock indices to post weekly losses for the first time this month, following a sell-off on Wall Street.

The Stoxx 600 Index was 1.9% down on week to finish Friday’s trading session at 328.77 points. Only two out of the 19 sub-indices on the gauge posted gains, while travel and leisure shares were the last week’s worst performers. Among individual movers, Edenred, a company that offers prepaid vouchers for products and services, appeared to be the previous week’s best performing blue chip, as its stock price rose from 22.55 euros on Monday to 23.94 euros on Friday. LeRevenue reported last week that the French firm’s share price has doubled its value over the last two years. Furthermore, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA followed with the second biggest weekly surge, as a report on Thursday showed the world’s largest luxury-goods firm’s fashion and leather-good sales grew at the fastest pace in two years, offsetting an unexpected drop in alcohol sales. On the downside, Bank of Ireland lost nearly 13% on week, adding to the decline in financial group.

The DAX Index finished the week at 9,315.29 on Friday, 2.1% lower, while the British FTSE 100 plummeted nearly 1% to end at 6,561.7 points.

U.S. Stocks lower on JPMorgan Chase Earnings Report

American stock market declined on week, dragged lower by Friday’s session amid news that JPMorgan had missed analysts' earnings estimates. Investors, who were concerned that technology shares were overvalued, dumped it for a second day, with some of the biggest gainers of late falling precisely. Weaker results at JPMorgan Chase pulled bank stocks lower.

The S&P’s 500 Index posted its biggest weekly loss since January, whereas disappointing results from JPMorgan Chase & Co. spurred concerns that corporate earnings will be weak. Losses of 5 % or more from Facebook Inc. to Tesla Motors Inc. and Netflix Inc. pushed the Nasdaq 100 down 3.1 % on Thursday, the worst fall in two years. During April, the gauge has moved 1.5 % a day on average, the most since November 2011.

Utilities inched up by 0.7% on week, posting the only weekly gain, whereas healthcare shares slid %, followed by a 2.5% drop in financial shares. Among individual performers, C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. climbed almost 5%, closing last week at $54.87, whereas Apollo Education Group Inc. sank almost 15% closing the previous trading week at $27.12.

The Nasdaq Composite Index declined by 1.3 % on Friday, capping its biggest two-day retreat since 2011 and a weekly loss of 2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended last week at 16,026.75. On Friday, about 7.4 billion shares were sold on U.S. exchanges, which is 5.8 % higher than the three-month average.

Asia Pacific market trades mixed on the week ending April 11

Asia Pacific Stock market traded in red on 11 April 2014, as investors took profits after tracking losses in Wall Street overnight on rising concerns over the valuations of high-flying technology shares.

The Japanese stocks closed Friday’s session at their lowest in six months, with the Nikkei 225 Index sinking to 13,960.05 points.

The Australian S&P/ASX 200 Index ended the last week rather flat at 5,428.65 points, 0.3% higher compared to its Monday’s price. Only utility sector ended the week on a positive note, as investors switched to safer stocks, whereas tech shares dipped the most on the benchmark index. Maverick Drilling & Exploration Ltd was the last week’s weakest performer among Australian stocks, dragging lower the energy sector. St Barbara, a gold exploration and production company, was another top loser last week, pacing losses in the basic material sector.

Elsewhere in the region, the Hang Seng Index posted solid weekly results to end the week at 23,003.64, despite losses in Friday’s session as the Hong Stock market absorbed worse than expected Chinese PPI data.

The NZX 50 Index dipped 0.3% over the week to 5,091.43 points after hitting its highest level since April 4 on Thursday.

EXPLANATIONS

Indexes

• Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500) or (SPX) - U.S. stock market index consisting of the 500 large-cap shares widely traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ.

• Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (INDU) - U.S. stock market index consisting of the 30 large publicly owned U.S. companies , primarily industrials

• NASDAQ Composite Index - U.S. stock market index representing all the stocks that are traded on the Nasdaq stock market, mostly technology and Internet-related

• New Zealand Exchange 50 Gross Index (NZX 50) - stock market index consisting of the top 50 companies listed on the New Zealand Stock exchange

• S&P/ASX 200 -a market-capitalization weighted stock market index of stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange from Standard and Poor’s

• Hang Seng Index (HI) - Hong Kong’s stock market index consisting of 48 largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Exchange

• Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average (Nikkei 225 Index) or (NKY) - Japanese stock market index consisting of the 225 largest companies listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange

• FTSE 100 Index (UKX) - U.K. stock market index consisting of the 100 most capitalized U.K. companies trading on the London Stock Exchange

• DAX Index (DAX) - German stock market index consisting of the 30 largest and most liquid German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange

• Eurostoxx 600 - stock market index, derived from the Stoxx Europe Total Market Index, consisting of 600 large, mid– and small-sized companies from 18 European countries

Chart

• Correlation - statistical measure of the linear relationship between two random variables. It is defined as the covariance divided by the standard deviation of two variables.

• Historical price changes - chart reflecting the historical price changes of particular region’s stock indices

Indicators

• Industry performance - weekly performance of industries within the particular stock market index

• Top performers - companies within a particular stock market index showing the best or worst weekly performance

• Performance - relative historical change of stock market index value