Global stocks up after US job gain paves way for rate hike
BEIJING—GLOBAL stocks gained Monday after strong US jobs data cleared the way for more interest rate hikes and Chinese exports rose by double digits.
London, Shanghai, Tokyo and Frankfurt advanced. Hong Kong retreated. Oil prices edged higher.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent on Friday after government data showed American employers added more jobs than expected in June. That undercut expectations a slowing economy might prompt the Fed to postpone or scale back plans for more rate hikes to cool inflation.
“Now it seems they will be debating whether they need to be even more aggressive,” Edward Moya of Oanda said in a report.
In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London was up 0.4 percent at 7,471.08 and the DA X in Frankfurt added 0.4 percent to 13,629.44. The CAC 40 in Paris advanced 0.6 percent to 6,512.74.
On Wall Street, the future for the S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2 percent.
The S&P declined 0.2 percent on Friday after government data showed employers hired more Americans in July than forecast. The Dow added 0.2 percent while
the Nasdaq composite lost 0.5 percent.
In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.3 percent to 3,236.93 after China’s July exports rose 18 percent over a year earlier, beating forecasts.
China’s trade surplus swelled to $101 billion in July after imports rose just 2.3 percent over a year ago, reflecting weak domestic demand.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 0.8 percent to 20,050.15 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 0.2 percent to 26.241.13.
The Kospi in Seoul gained less than 0.1 percent to 2,493.10 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 shed less than 0.1 percent to 7,020.60.
India’s Sensex gained 0.9 percent at 58,892.25. Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore and Bangkok retreated while Jakarta gained.
Investors worry tighter policy from the Fed and central banks in Europe and Asia to cool inflation that is running at multi-decade highs might derail global economic growth.
Markets also have been rattled by Russia’s war on Ukraine, which
caused a spike in prices of oil, wheat and other commodities, and by uncertainty about Chinese antivirus curbs that have disrupted manufacturing and shipping.
Last week’s strong US employment data gave ammunition to Fed officials who say the economy can tolerate higher borrowing costs to cool inflation. After Friday’s announcement, traders expect the Fed to raise its benchmark rate by 0.75 percentage points next month, up from forecasts of half a point. That would be triple the usual margin and the third such outsized hike this year.
Higher interest rates are meant to counter inflation by cooling business activity, but that also raises the risk of recession and job losses. The latest inflationary spike is unusual because forecasters have blamed shortages
of goods due to the coronavirus pandemic, rather than rapid economic growth.
Wall Street is coming off its best month for stocks since late 2020, a rally driven by falling bond yields. Traders hoped the economy was slowing enough for the Fed to ease off.
In energy markets, benchmark US crude fell 56 cents to $88.45 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 47 cents to $89.01 on Friday. Brent crude, the price basis for international trading, shed 61 cents to $94.31 per barrel in London. It gained 80 cents to $94.92 the previous session.
The dollar rose to 135.18 yen from Friday’s 135.11 yen. The euro advanced to $1.0187 from $1.0178.