Sawt Falasteen - Stocks steady, dollar up as Trump and Xi talk

Wall Street's 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.

"The key event today is the scheduled phone call between US President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping," 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's Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its US operations for national security reasons.

"Trade issues are also likely to come up, and there’s some speculation this could pave the way for an in-person meeting," 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's central bank would hike interest rates later this year after leaving borrowing costs unchanged Friday.

Before the announcement, official data showed inflation in Japan -- the world's fourth-largest economy -- slowed in August, with rice price rises easing following a sharp spike that had rattled the country's 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.

- Key figures at around 1330 GMT -

New York - Dow: UP 0.2 percent at 46,219.17 points

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.2 percent at 6,646.45

New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.4 percent at 22,551.83

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 9,242.12

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.3 percent at 7,875.83

Frankfurt - DAX: FLAT at 23,669.87

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.6 percent at 45,045.81 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: FLAT at 26,545.10 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,820.09 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1749 from $1.1785 on Thursday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3484 from $1.3550

Dollar/yen: UP at 147.99 yen from 147.97 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 87.12 pence from 86.96 pence

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.7 percent at $66.99 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.8 percent at $63.05 per barrel

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W.Mansour--SF-PST