Stocks advance ahead of Trump-Xi meeting
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global equity markets and the dollar edged higher on Thursday, helped by fresh data showing a tighter US labor market, as investors stayed cautious before the first meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
Key stock indexes in Europe and on Wall Street climbed, but a gauge of global equities was little changed, with gains offset by a decline in emerging markets.
The dollar index extended gains after data showed new applications last week for US unemployment benefits recorded their biggest drop in nearly two years.
Last week’s jobless-claims data, however, has little bearing on the March employment report due out on Friday. Claims rose during the survey week for nonfarm payrolls last month, suggesting some moderation in the pace of job growth.
“The market will be very remiss to do anything too sharp at this point, given that we have payrolls coming up,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, an interest-rate strategist at TD Securities in New York.
The dollar index rose 0.1%, with the euro down 0.11% to $1.065. The Japanese yen eased 0.27% versus the greenback to 111.03 per dollar.
Trump faces pressure to deliver trade concessions with China for some of his most fervent supporters and to prevent a crisis with North Korea from spiraling out of control. However, White House officials have set expectations low for the meeting.
The market’s main concern is that Trump and Xi may not see eye to eye on most things, and that traders will infer this from their body language, said Thierry Albert Wizman, a global interest-rates and currencies strategist at Macquarie Group in New York.
“Rather than a lack of agreement, however, the greater risk is a lack of deep engagement,” he said.
On Wall Street in afternoon trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 54.07 points, or 0.26%, to 20,702.22, the S&P 500 gained 7.27 points, or 0.31%, to 2,360.22, and the Nasdaq Composite added 19.07 points, or 0.33%, to 5,883.55.
The pan-European FTS Eurofirst 300 index closed up 0.20% to a provisional 1,500.65, while MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe fell 0.01%.
Oil prices rose nearly 1%, on track for a fourth straight day of gains, but analysts warned record high US inventories could derail the rally.
US crude rose 42 cents to $51.57 a barrel, and Brent was last at $54.71, up 35 cents on the day.
US Treasury yields rose slightly ahead of the US jobs report on Friday. Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes were last down 3/32 in price to yield 2.3677%.
Gold edged lower, pressured by a firmer dollar, while copper also fell. US gold futures gained 0.36% to $1,253.00 an ounce. Copper lost 0.65% to $5,856.50 a ton.