Stocks set for gains as trade angst eases

MSCI ALL-COUNTRY WORLD INDEX UP 0.1% IN LONDON

Shares rose worldwide yesterday as strong company earnings reports and as transatlantic trade tensions eased after an agreement between the United States and Europe last week.

The MSCI All-Country World Index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, was up 0.1 per cent in London and was set for a sixth straight session of gains, a run not seen since February, and its fourth straight weekly gain.

European shares rose, with consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, construction groups Saint Gobain and Vinci and bank BBVA gaining after results, lifting the STOXX 600 0.4 per cent. European auto stocks extended to Thursday’s gains.

Trade tensions had not disappeared altogether from investors’ radars however. Chinese shares lagged an uptick in Asian shares, with the main Shanghai index down 0.4 per cent on the day. Traders attributed this to a stillunresolved standoff between the US and China on trade.

“To see the way markets reacted early yesterday ... it was almost as if the EU and the US were best buddies again,” CMC Markets chief markets analyst Michael Hewson said.

“Nothing could be further from the truth, and while the prospect of tariffs on European cars has diminished, it hasn’t gone away completely, which means inevitably the market shifts its attention elsewhere. That elsewhere concerns what could happen next with respect to China, and the prospect of an escalation there,” he said.

So far this month, MSCI China A shares have fallen 2.6 per cent, taking the biggest hit from US President Donald Trump’s threats on tariffs among other issues in major markets, compared with 3.3-per cent gains in the MSCI ACWI.

China

The Chinese yuan eased, on course to mark its seventh week of losses, although those losses were cushioned by Chinese state banks’ swapping of dollars for yuan in the forward market.

Traders said they may also have been selling spot dollars.

Borrowing costs in the Eurozone’s biggest economy, Germany, held below six-week highs, a day after the European Central Bank’s president backed market expectations for a rise in interest rates late next year.

Most 10-year bond yields in the bloc were steady ahead of second quarter US economic growth data due out at 1230 GMT that many economists expect to show a strong reading.

The 10-year US Treasuries yield edged up to 2.9880 per cent, its highest level in 1-1/2 months, on receding worries about trade tensions.

“In fixed income markets, the main question today is whether the 10-year US Treasury yield ... will break the 3 per cent mark in the wake of the US GDP release,” a UniCredit note said.

Japan’s 10-year government bond yield slipped off a one-year high after the BOJ conducted special, unlimited buying for the second time last week.

Most market players expect central bankers meeting on Monday to stop short of making immediate policy changes and to say instead that they will study ways to reduce the side-effects of the prolonged easing, such as hits to banks’ profits.

In currencies, the dollar slipped 0.1 per cent to 111.17 yen as the yen got a lift from a rise in Japanese bond yields.