Asia
China stock markets took another tumble at the start of the new trading week, with the Shanghai Composite Index sliding over 2% on Friday’s close to 2,542 points. The index has been lower this year, trading below 2,500 points last week to a four-year low, but Shanghai is now 1,000 points below its recent cyclical high at the start of the year.
The CSI 300 index was off even more in percentage terms, closing over 3% lower.
South Korea’s Kospi was 1.5% lower.
The rest of Asia’s biggest markets, including Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Japan’s Nikkei 225, did not suffer such strong moves.
Europe
Markets in Europe deviated from Asia’s nervy trading day by posting gains. The euro weakened after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would not seek re-election as CDU party leader. The softening single currency boosted Germany’s DAX the most out of Europe’s main markets.
The UK’s FTSE 100 also received a currency boost, as the pound dropped below $1.30 ahead of Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget speech later in the afternoon.
The FTSE 100 managed to move above 7,000 points after last week’s falls and by midmorning was up nearly 1.5% at 7,042 points.
Shares in banking giant HSBC (HSBA) were the early leaders of the FTSE 100 after a near-30% rise in profits.
This week is a busy one for macroeconomic forecasts, with the Bank of England delivering its quarterly Inflation Report on Thursday. The Bank is expected to hold interest rates and quantitative easing levels but it will be useful to see how the Bank’s UK growth forecasts tally with those of the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose analysis is used by the Chancellor in the Budget speech.
North America
Facebook (FB) and Apple (AAPL) bring to end the earnings season for FAANG stocks, which has so far been mixed. Results from Twitter (TWTR) were better received than the previous quarter. Despite a fall in monthly active users, profits and revenues were higher than forecasts as advertisers spent more money on the platform.
Twitter is not part of the FAANG acronym and has been shunned by some investors for having a more complicated growth story than larger rival Facebook. Its efforts to eliminate fake accounts are reducing the number of users but are improving its standing with the investors.
Despite the falls in Asia, US markets are expected to open higher on Monday.
This week’s economic highlights include non-farm payrolls numbers on Friday, consumer confidence PCE data.
In Canada, GDP data is expected to show that the economy grew by 0.1% month on month in August, and is 2.4% larger than the year before.
Canada’s Waste Connections (WCN) reports earnings today.