Asia
China’s stock market bounced back on Tuesday with a near 3% gain on the day, restoring some of the losses made last week, helped by a fair wind from US stock markets. Today optimism gained the upper hand as a solid earnings season for US companies helped global investors downgrade trade war tensions – for now. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng also made gains, helped by gambling and casino stocks. While the USD-JPY exchange rate remained relatively stable – a fall in the yen is often the driver for equity gains – the Nikkei and Topix indices rose by less than 1% on the day. Results from Tokyo-listed SoftBank (9984) helped sentiment.
Australia left interest rates on hold and the All Ordinaries drifted lower.
Europe
In the UK, the FTSE managed to rise by about 55 points to 7,720, despite a slight recovery in sterling, as commodities reacted to a firmer oil price as the United States imposed new sanctions on Iran. Today’s fallers include companies reporting interim results, such as Intertek (ITRK) and Hargreaves Lansdown (HL).
The pound managed to climb back above $1.30 after recent weakness. With the first reading of the UK’s second quarter GDO due to Friday, traders will have a better idea how the economy fared in the spring and extrapolate what the Bank of England’s next move might be. However, the current obsession with no-deal Brexit is the major swing factor for sterling in recent days.
House prices, as measured by building society Halifax, rebounded unexpectedly in July after a summer lull, but this provided only a minor lift to listed housebuilders.
Europe’s stock markets rose steadily across the board, with Germany’s DAX the biggest riser in percentage terms.
North America
Oil’s rise in price is dominating investors’ agendas today, more so than the ongoing trade spat between the US and China. A firmer oil price has been supportive of the US stock market so far this year.
Tech giants have been reporting in the last few weeks and today is the turn of challenger Snapchat (SNAP) – with a market valuation of around $16 billion, it is some way off that of Apple (AAPL).
Friday sees US inflation data move into view, and this should add more fuel to the debate over whether the Federal Reserve will raise rates by three or four times this year: there are only three more meetings due, in September, November and December. Consumer prices are expected to have risen by 2.9% in July, the same as in June.
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