LDN - Business

Oil prices fall and world share prices are mixed in thin holiday trading

[May 05, 2025] By JIANG JUNZHE

HONG KONG (AP) — Global shares were mixed in holiday-thinned trading Monday, while oil prices fell after the OPEC+ group of oil producing nations said it plans to boost output.

Markets were closed in Britain and much of Asia.

The future for the S&P 500 slid 0.6% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5%.

Germany's DAX gained 0.4% to 23,181.61 and the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.4% to 7,737.21.

U.S. benchmark crude oil fell as much as 4% early in the day. By late Monday in Asia it had shed $1.15 or 2% to $57.14 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost $1.14 to $60.15 per barrel.

During the weekend, the OPEC+ group of eight nations announced it will raise its output by 411,000 barrels per day as of June 1, stepping up production increases.

The group said strong fundamentals were behind the decision, though analysts also speculated that it might reflect a desire to curry favor with U.S. President Donald Trump before he makes a visit to the Middle East later this month.

Prices have fallen nearly 20% in the past three months as traders have factored in the likely impact of Trump's trade policies on the global economy. Trump has made delivering lower gas prices one of his talking points.

“Washington wants cheap energy, and Gulf producers still lean on U.S. security guarantees; the White House bears down, they listen,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

“In that sense the U.S. president has become an unofficial swing vote inside OPEC+,” he said.

U.S. crude oil is down about 17% for the year. According to AAA, gasoline is selling for an average of about $3.17 per gallon, down from $3.66 per gallon a year ago.

But prices are falling to a point where many producers can no longer turn a profit.

Most markets in Asia were closed. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 1% to 8,157.80 while Taiwan's Taiex declined 1.2%.

The U.S. dollar slipped to 144.15 Japanese yen from 144.71 yen.

The euro climbed to $1.1329 from 1.1306.

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Oil pumps work in the desert oil fields of Sakhir, Bahrain, Sept. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)

On Friday, Wall Street extended its gains to a ninth straight day, the market’s longest winning streak since 2004. It has reclaiming much of the ground it lost after President Donald Trump escalated his trade war in early April.

The rally was spurred by a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market and revived hopes that Washington will tone down its trade tensions with China.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.4%. The Nasdaq composite rose 1.5%.

The S&P 500 is still down 3.3% so far this year, and 7.4% below the record it reached in February.

The gains were broad. Roughly 90% of stocks and every sector in the S&P 500 advanced. Technology stocks led the way. Microsoft rose 2.3% and Nvidia rose 2.5%. Apple, however, fell 3.7% after the iPhone maker estimated that Trump's tariffs will cost it $900 million.

Banks and other financial companies also made solid gains. JPMorgan Chase rose 2.3% and Visa closed 1.5% higher.

Employers added 177,000 jobs in April. That marks a slowdown in hiring from March, but it was solidly better than economists anticipated. Jobs are being closely watched for signs of stress amid trade war tensions.

The economy is already showing signs of strain. The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3% annual pace during the first quarter of the year. It was slowed by a surge in imports as businesses tried to get ahead of Trump’s tariffs.

Companies have been cutting and withdrawing financial forecasts because of the uncertainty over how much tariffs will cost them and how much they will squeeze consumers and sap spending.

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