US stocks fell today ahead of a summit next week that could decide whether Greece will need to print its own currency and ditch the euro.
Euro zone leaders are scheduled to meet on Monday night in a last-ditch effort to reach a deal with Athens. As bank withdrawals across Greece ballooned to about 4.2 billion euros this week, the European Central Bank boosted its emergency funding for Greek banks.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 101.56 points, or 0.56 percent, to 18,014.28, the S&P 500 lost 11.48 points, or 0.54 percent, to 2,109.76 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 15.95 points, or 0.31 percent, to 5,117.00.
For the week, the Dow gained 0.6 percent, the S&P added 0.7 percent and the Nasdaq, which had closed at a record high on Thursday, rose 1.3 percent.
Meanwhile, trading in European markets remained calm as investors hoped an emergency meeting of euro zone leaders next week will keep Greece from defaulting.
The subdued reaction to the Greek crisis in recent weeks supports the notion that the exposure of Europe’s private sector to Greece is minimal, and that a default or a Greek exit from the euro zone would have little impact on the other economies.
Greek shares, down 17 percent so far this year, rose 0.57 percent even though talks collapsed late on Thursday.
The pan-regional FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 0.34 percent to close at 1,529.65 but Germany’s DAX fell 0.54 percent.
In the meantime, Japanese shares prices rebounded from one-month low, taking heart from rises in global shares on the Fed’s cautious rates and economic outlook, but they posted the third straight weekly decline.
The Nikkei rose 0.9 percent to 20,174.24, bouncing off one-month low of 19,990.55 set on Thursday. Turnover was 2.96 trillion yen, more than 10 percent above the average during the 100 past days.
The market showed limited reaction after the Bank of Japan maintained its policy unchanged as expected. The short-selling ratio hit a record high of 38.3 percent on Thursday, suggesting speculators are likely to have a big short position to cover, giving support for the market.
On the week, the Nikkei was down 1.1 percent on the week. The broader Topix index rose 0.9 percent to 1,631.01 but was down 1.2 percent on the week.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald