The COVID-19 lockdown of Sydney was extended on Friday and a nightly curfew imposed on the city's worst-affected suburbs in a last-ditch attempt to slow the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant that is spreading across New South Wales state.
Wall Street ended the day lower on Wednesday, after meeting minutes showed U.S. Federal Reserve officials split on when to ease back on economic stimulus, while COVID-19's spread weighed on oil for the fifth straight day.
Mexico registered 14,814 new COVID-19 infections and 877 more deaths, health ministry data showed on Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 3,123,252 and the death toll to 249,529.
The safe-haven U.S. dollar hovered near a 9-1/2-month high against major peers on Friday, buoyed by fears that the Delta coronavirus variant could delay the global economic recovery.
Oil prices rose on Friday, pulling up from three-month lows, but they were still on track for a weekly loss of over 5% as new lockdowns in countries facing surging cases of the Delta variant dampened the outlook for fuel demand.