Stock markets steadied and the dollar rose Friday at the end of a week marked by central bank decisions, as attention turned to a call between US president Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
Wall Street鈥檚 three main indices nudged higher as trading got under way, coming off record closes on Thursday thanks to another surge in the share prices of technology giants.
In Europe, London and Paris edged higher in afternoon trading, while Frankfurt was flat.
鈥楾he key event today is the scheduled phone call between US president Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping,鈥� said Sam Cornford, head of trading at broker Ballinger Group.
Chinese media reported the phone call got under way before Wall Street opened for trading.
Trump told reporters earlier he would speak to Xi about a deal to change ownership of the hugely popular video-sharing app TikTok as well as trade.
The US president has repeatedly put off a ban under a law designed to force TikTok鈥檚 Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its US operations for national security reasons.
鈥楾rade issues are also likely to come up, and there鈥檚 some speculation this could pave the way for an in-person meeting,鈥� Cornford added.
The call comes after high-level discussions between Washington and Beijing officials in Madrid, where they addressed trade ahead of a November tariff deadline.
Meanwhile, the British pound retreated after official data showed UK government borrowing had reached its highest level since the Covid pandemic.
Tokyo led losses among major Asian indices on expectations that Japan鈥檚 central bank would hike interest rates later this year after leaving borrowing costs unchanged Friday.
Before the announcement, official data showed inflation in Japan 鈥� the world鈥檚 fourth-largest economy 鈥� slowed in August, with rice price rises easing following a sharp spike that had rattled the country鈥檚 government.
The week saw a widely expected interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve, as well as reductions by the central banks of Norway and Canada.
The Bank of England left rates unchanged.