Asia
China and Japan stock markets were closed at the start of the new week, although Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed some of last week’s gains with a fall of nearly 500 points on the day. The 10% US tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods kicks in today. China’s Premier Li Keqiang was quoted at the weekend promising to reduce the costs and administrative delays associated with doing in business in China, especially relating to customs. China also accused the United States of “bullying” the country over trade.
Europe
The weekend’s announcement that Comcast (CMCSA) had won the bid to buy FTSE 100 broadcaster Sky (SKY) sent the shares up to the takeover level of around £17.28. The 8% gain in its shares meant that Sky led the FTSE 100 this morning, although the index itself was a touch down on Friday’s close below 7,500 points. The FTSE 250 was down by a similar amount in percentage terms. Thomas Cook Group (TCG) was the biggest faller on the mid-cap index, shedding around 20% of its value after this summer’s hot weather in the UK deterred potential customers from booking overseas holiday altogether or delaying trips until the last minute.
Eurozone exchanges were weaker, with Spain and Italy the biggest fallers in percentage terms, although this was only by only 0.5% or so on Friday’s closing levels.
North America
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates in the lower and upper bound by a quarter point this week, the third hike this year. After this week’s meeting, there are only two more meetings in 2018, in November and December. Fed chair Jerome Powell speaks before the Senate on the US economy later in the week.
Apart from the Federal Reserve interest rate decision, Thursday sees a raft of data releases, including the third reading of Q2 GDP, durable goods orders, the advance goods trade balance, as well as weekly jobless claims.
Canada’s GDP will be in focus on Friday with July figures in view. The Canadian economy is expected to have risen by 2.2% in July from the same month in 2017, a drop from the 2.4% gain in June.
