• Oil prices drop on demand concerns
  • Stocks across the globe retreat
  • Saudi Arabia’s index rises 0.8 percent
  • Dollar drops, gold gains

Oil prices

Oil prices edged lower again on Friday on concerns over weak demand.

Brent crude futures settled at $67.30 per barrel, 83 cents, or 1.2 percent below their last close and down about 0.2 percent on the week. The contract hit a four-month high of $68.69 on Thursday.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures fell 94 cents, or 1.6 percent, to settle at $59.04 per barrel. WTI marked a 2019 peak on Thursday at $60.39 and rose 0.8 percent on the week.

As economic growth has slowed across Asia, Europe and North America, potentially denting fuel consumption, no breakthrough has emerged in the trade stand-off between Washington and Beijing, at least before meetings scheduled on March 28-29, according to a Reuters report.

Global markets

Stocks dropped on Friday on concerns over a slowdown in the global economy.

Data from IHS Markit showed that preliminary measures of U.S. manufacturing and services activity for March showed both sectors grew at a slower pace than in February, according to a Reuters report.

All three major U.S. stock indexes registered their biggest one-day percentage losses since January 3.

Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 460.19 points, or 1.77 percent, to 25,502.32, the S&P 500 lost 54.17 points, or 1.90 percent, to 2,800.71 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 196.29 points, or 2.5 percent, to 7,642.67.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.22 percent and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 1.48 percent.

Middle East markets

Saudi Arabia’s index added 0.8 percent on Thursday following its inclusion in the FTSE Russell's emerging-market index during the week. Al Rajhi Bank and Riyad Bank gained 2.2 percent each.

Abu Dhabi’s index added 0.6 percent with First Abu Dhabi Bank and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) adding 1.3 percent each.

In Dubai, the index fell 0.6 percent after four straight days of gains, with Damac Properties losing 2.8 percent and Emaar Properties decreasing 1.5 percent.

Qatar's index was down 0.2 percent with Barwa Real Estate plunging 7.3 percent and Commercial Bank losing 0.6 percent as the stocks traded ex-dividend.

Egypt’s blue-chip index EGX30 added 0.4 percent as Sixth of October Development and Investment (SODIC) climbed 4.7 percent.

Kuwait’s premier market index rose 1.3 percent, Bahrain’s index edged 0.2 percent lower and Oman’s index dropped 0.2 percent.

Currencies

The dollar dropped on Friday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, slipped 0.2 percent to 96.314.

Precious metals

Gold prices rose on a weaker dollar.

Spot gold climbed about 0.3 percent at $1,313.07 per ounce by 1:48 p.m. EDT (1748 GMT), while U.S. gold futures settled 0.4 percent higher at $1,312.3.

Please add the following:  (Reporting by Gerard Aoun; Editing by Michael Fahy)

(gerard.aoun@refinitiv.com)

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