Asia
A bounceback by the Dow Jones on Wednesday laid the foundation for some solid daily gains in Asia. Another record high for the Nasdaq overnight helped Hong Kong’s Hang Seng to a 250+ point gain. And Japan’s Nikkei and Topix indices were given a boost by the dollar’s continuing strength against the yen.
Nevertheless, the higher trend in global markets passed Chinese exchanges by today, although losses on the Shenzhen and Shanghai Composite Indices were modest.
India’s BSE Sensex was up over 1% even as the central bank raised interest rates for the first time since 2014. The Reserve Bank of India said that troublesome inflation forced the quarter point rise to 6.75%. Local investors are for now betting on the rate rise being a temporary fix rather than the beginning of a cycle of monetary tightening – at the same time another rate rise could be on the cards in October.
Europe
The London Stock Exchange had a delayed start to the trading day due to technical problems. After the market opened, the FTSE 100 was a touch lower and the FTSE 250 was marginally higher.
Royal Mail (RMG) was the biggest riser and Vodafone (VOD) was the biggest faller among the blue chips.
Housebuilders were on the move this morning as building society Halifax said house prices had risen 1.5% in May on the month, higher than the 1% forecast.
In the eurozone, Spain and Italian exchanges were among the best performing. But shares in Europe were held back for another strong day for the euro, as market watchers eagerly anticipate the European Central Bank’s next move.
North America
Weekly jobless data is in focus today, with initial jobless claims to June 2 and continuing claims to May 26 released. Recent data sets have shown jobless claims to be at a multi-decade low, supporting the idea that the US economy is running at full steam.
Last week’s monthly non-farm payrolls data was a further sign that the American labour market is tightening after a slow start to the year. The Federal Reserve will meet next week and is expected to raise interest rates again.
:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/morningstar/DJVWK4TWZBCJZJOMX425TEY2KQ.png)
