Global Shares Follow Wall Street Lower--2nd Update

By Riva Gold and Ese Erheriene 

Global stocks were subdued Thursday following a modest pullback on Wall Street, even as concerns around the French election appeared to wane.

The Stoxx Europe 600 was off 0.1% in the early minutes of trading, with a fall in metals prices weighing on the basic resources sector.

Shares of Barclays PLC rose 2%, however, after the U.K. bank swung to a full year net profit and said it was just months away from finishing a restructuring.

The euro and French government bonds showed signs of relief following a recent selloff after centrist Francois Bayrou announced his offer of an alliance with independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, diminishing some investors' fears of a victory for anti-euro candidate Marine Le Pen.

The euro was last up 0.1% at $1.0556 after snapping a three-session losing streak. German 10-year yields were little changed at 0.273% from 0.272% Wednesday, while French yields fell to 1.006% from 1.025%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Investors were also digesting the latest Federal Reserve meeting minutes, where officials suggested that lifting U.S. interest rates "fairly soon" may be appropriate in light of an improving economy.

Many officials continued, however, to expect a gradual pace of rate rises and only a modest risk of an inflation overshoot. Investors largely continued to view a March rate rise as unlikely after the minutes, with U.S. government bonds strengthening and the dollar ending the day with modest declines.

Banks and financials mostly declined across Asia, causing Japan's Nikkei to end flat and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index to shed 0.3%, after briefly rising to its highest level since September.

Yifan Xie, David Harrison and Hiroyuki Kachi contributed to this article.

Write to Riva Gold at [e-mail] and Ese Erheriene at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 23, 2017 04:00 ET (09:00 GMT)

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