Sawt Falasteen - Stock markets drop amid tech concerns before rate calls

The Bank of England (BoE) was widely expected to keep its main interest rate on hold Thursday, shortly ahead of a likely similar decision from the European Central Bank (ECB).

The British pound slid as Prime Minister Keir Starmer fights for his political life amid a storm of protest for appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, despite knowing about his close ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The yield on 10-year UK government bonds jumped to 4.59 percent, the highest level since November.

With no rate changes expected from either the BoE or ECB, traders will be looking for any changes to their outlooks on growth and inflation.

The central bank updates are "set to provide further catalysts into an already volatile and unpredictable market that has seen sharp tech and precious metal declines over the past week", said Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets.

Investor caution also remains high after Anthropic, which created the AI chatbot Claude, unveiled a tool that could be used by firms to carry out legal work.

Its announcement Tuesday hit firms across the software, financial services and asset management industries, though analysts said there has been a general shift by investors out of tech following years of eye-watering gains.

An underwhelming response to earnings from titans including Alphabet, ARM and Microsoft has further fuelled that move, which also comes as questions are raised about the wisdom of pumping hundreds of billions into AI with little idea about the timing of returns.

Fiona Cincotta, an analyst at City Index, said that "while losses in tech continue, sentiment remains fragile".

Silver prices tanked almost 11 percent Thursday as a sell-off in precious metals resumed after a brief spell of calm following massive selling when records were reached last week.

Gold, traditionally seen as a safe-haven, lost 1.8 percent.

Oil prices dropped after Iran and the United States said nuclear talks would go ahead in Oman this week.

The news soothed investor concerns sparked by a report Wednesday that the bitter foes would not meet owing to a row about the format and the venue, which sent the price of both main contracts up more than three percent.

Bitcoin briefly fell to $70,010 as investors reconsidered their holdings of riskier assets, with the cryptocurrency now down more than 40 percent from its record high above $126,000 in October.

In corporate news, shares in Panasonic closed up 8.4 percent in Tokyo after the Japanese electronics giant said that alongside rising profit that it would increase its job cuts to 12,000 as part of a restructuring drive.

Sony closed slightly higher after hiking its full-year sales and profit forecasts thanks to a weaker yen.

In London, oil giant Shell was down one percent in midday deals on a mixed earnings update.

- Key figures at around 1100 GMT -

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.3 percent at 10,375.47 points

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.3 percent at 8,282.31

Frankfurt - DAX: DOWN 0.2 percent at 24,552.56

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.9 percent at 53,818.04 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.1 percent at 26,885.24 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 4,075.92 (close)

New York - Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 49,501.30 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1793 from $1.1802 on Wednesday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3595 from $1.3648

Dollar/yen: UP at 157.17 yen from 156.92 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 86.77 pence from 86.47 pence

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.3 percent at $68.54 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.3 percent at $64.27 per barrel

N.Awad--SF-PST