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Category: Stockmarket / Currency / Futures / Markets

Wall St retreats on easing oil prices

Friday, 19 Feb 2016 05:50:12 | Rebecca Hyam

US shares took a breather after three sessions of gains, falling around 0.5 per cent last night. (Reuters)

Easing oil prices and a slump among retail stocks put pressure on Wall Street overnight, ending a three-day rally for US markets.

Oil prices were actually edging higher at the start of the overnight trading session, ahead of the release of the latest US petroleum inventory data.

But that report revealed crude stocks rose last week and that, in turn, pushed oil prices off their session highs.

Retail giant Wal-Mart saw its share price fall, after the company reported a lower quarterly profit and provided a muted outlook for sales.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.25 per cent to 16,413.

The S&P 500 lost 0.5 per cent to end the session at 1,918 and the Nasdaq finished 1 per cent lower at 4,487.

Stocks in Europe closed mixed, with London's FTSE 100 faring the worst of the major markets - it fell 1 per cent to 5,972.

Locally, shares are set to open flat and, at 8:30am AEDT, the ASX SPI 200 was down 0.5 per cent to 4,932.

At the same time, the Australian dollar was weaker at 71.51 US cents.

On the cross-rates, it was buying 64.42 euro cents, 49.9 British pence, 81.04 Japanese yen and $NZ1.077.

West Texas crude oil was quoted at $US30.72 a barrel, the price of a barrel of Tapis was lower at $US35.89 and spot gold had jumped to $US1,232.56 an ounce.

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