Shares in Asia-Pacific closed higher overnight, while stateside stocks gained on Friday. Meanwhile, in Europe, U.K. retail sales plummeted 0.5% month-on-month in May, slightly less than the -0.7% projected by economists in a Reuters poll, while April’s monthly rise in sales was down from 1.4% to 0.4%.
The Ifo Institute’s business climate index for Germany dipped to 92.3 in June from 93.0 in May. Final data showed Friday that the Spanish economy expanded by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2022, slowing from a growth rate of 2.2% in the last quarter of 2021.
