BANGKOK (AP) — Shares declined Friday in Europe after a mixed session in Asia and U.S. futures were little changed after U.S. inflation data showed a better-than-expected improvement in July. Oil prices resumed climbing after slipping 2% a day earlier. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.3% to 10,744.31 after Nigel Farage regained the seat in Parliament he quit a month ago, beating trash-can wearing comic candidate Count Binface in a widely mocked special election.In Germany, the DAX rose 0.5% to 26,442.54, while the CAC 40 in Paris edged less than 0.1% lower to 8,648.48.The future for the S&P 500 edged 0.1% higher while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1%. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.6% to 68,713.80, while the Kospi in South Korea rose 2.4% to 6,977.94. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng lost 1.1% to 25,116.85. The Shanghai Composite index was nearly unchanged at 3,927.18.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.8% to 9,115.20.Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.5% and the Sensex in India fell 0.2%. On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose 0.7% to an all-time high close of 7,798.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1% to 53,839.99, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.8% to 26,803.03.Investors were relieved by a report that showed prices at the U.S. wholesale level were 4.7% higher last month than a year earlier. While that is more painful than anyone would like, it’s not as bad as June’s 5.5% inflation rate at the wholesale level, and it was slightly better than economists expected.
