Market Headlines 28/7/2017

US

• The S&P 500 rallied from intra-day lows to close only marginally down. Technology stocks continued to be of focus with mixed share price response to results released last night – Amazon falling 3%, but Intel beating and rallying by the same amount.
• The Energy sector benefited from returning strength in the oil price: now up almost 9% in a month to $51 a barrel.
• US Healthcare reform stalled again with Senate Majority Leader, Mitch Mc Connell, withdrawing the Senate version of the Republican’s healthcare reform bill following its failure to pass in the Senate yesterday.
• Separately, the Republican leadership announced that they were abandoning plans to introduce a Border Adjustment Tax as part of the overhaul of the US tax code. This proposal, when initially announced, had a material negative effect on the share prices of some importers and US retailers. The ending of the tax proposal should be taken positively by the stocks of these companies.
• Market attention is on the release of Q2 US GDP today.

Europe

• Mixed markets in Europe – Telecoms led the market (+1.3%) with Healthcare being the biggest laggard (-1.2%) driven down by the 15% fall in UK Healthcare company, AstraZeneca, following poor news on the development of one of its key drugs
• The Euro and Sterling both fell (0.5% and 0.4% respectively) against the US dollar as yields on German Government bonds and UK Gilts slipped vs US Treasuries.

Asia

• A weaker session across the board following the US lead.