Global shares slide on European travel limits, Chinese data

Global shares are down after European countries imposed more limits on travel to counter a rise in coronavirus contagions

TOKYO — Global shares fell on Friday after European countries imposed more limits on travel to counter a rise in coronavirus contagions and new data out of China showed that its economic recovery remains subdued.

Shares in Europe trended lower after Britain said it was imposing a 14-day quarantine on travelers from France, which said it would respond in kind. Tourism and travel stocks were hit particularly hard, with budget airlines easyJet and IAG down 6%.

France’s CAC 40 dropped 1.7% to 4,956, while Germany’s DAX fell 0.9% to 12,871. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 1.6% to 6,089. U.S. shares were set to drift lower with Dow futures down 0.3% and S&P 500 futures falling 0.1%

China reported its factory output rose 4.8% from a year earlier in July, on a par with June’s increase. Retail sales fell 1.1%, as consumers remain cautious.

Malaysia reported, meanwhile, that its economy contracted at a real annual rate of 16.5% in April-June, its worst downturn on record. The Malaysian central bank forecast that the economy will return to growth in 2021.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained nearly 0.2% to finish at 23,289.36. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 1.2% to 2,407.49. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.6% to 6,126.20. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gyrated earlier in the day but lost 0.2% to 25,183.01, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 1.2% to 3,360.10.

Trade tensions between the U.S. and China are also on investors’ minds as so much of Asian regional growth depends on exports to those giant economies.

The two sides are due to hold talks online later Friday on a trade deal reached in January that brought a truce in their bruising tariff war.

U.S. retail sales, production and productivity data are expected later in the day.

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 1 cent to $42.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, added a cent as well to $44.97 a barrel.

The dollar fell to 106.67 Japanese yen from 106.95 yen. The euro dropped to $1.1807 from $1.1815.