Asia
The rise in US markets on Wednesday helped most Asia-Pacific stock markets to post reasonable gains on Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose over 400 points to 22,486, a gain of nearly 2%, helped by a fall in the Japanese yen against the US dollar.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng managed a modest gain, but once again the Shanghai stock market lagged wider regional movements higher. The Shenzhen Component Index was also weaker on the day.
China’s trade surplus gained in October from a month before, in both local currency and US dollar terms. Imports and exports grew at a rate of 26% and 21% respectively in Chinese yuan.
Consumer Price Inflation data for China is due on Friday.
Europe
Stocks in Europe initially followed Wall Street’s lead, but indices softened approaching midday as the European Commission cut economic growth forecasts for 2020 to 1.7%. The EC kept its 2018 forecast at 2.1%, lower than the 2.4% seen last year. It also warned that the Eurozone faced risks from trade tariffs and from an overheating US economy.
Thursday saw a range of FTSE 100 big names report, including AstraZeneca (AZN), Burberry (BRBY) and Sainsbury’s (SBRY). Sainsbury’s results were held back by high exceptional costs from restructuring and the purchase of Argos and the shares dipped.
North America
Despite the obvious political gridlock created by the US midterms, the Dow posted its strongest post-election gains since 1982. The 545-point gain, a rise of over 2%, took the Dow Jones back above 26,000 points, a level it first breached in January 2018 and then again in September before the October volatility kicked in.
The Federal Reserve meeting has to take a back seat to political drama this week, and it is expected to hold rates at a lower bound of 2% and upper bound of 2.25%. The provisional University of Michigan sentiment index for November is due tomorrow.
Disney (DIS) reports earnings today after the market closes and in Canada Brookfield Asset Management (BAM.A) releases numbers.