Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg
Most Asian stocks rose on Thursday and the pound advanced as a draft of post-Brexit trade The deal seemed to calm investors’ nerves at the start of the Christmas vacation.
Shares rose in Australia, Japan and South Korea, while U.S. stock futures were flat. The S&P 500 previously finished up just 0.1%, with the Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 indices reaching intraday records. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. sank more than 6% in Hong Kong after China launched an investigation into alleged monopoly practices at the technology giant.
Treasury bonds remained stable after the gap between 5 and 30 year yields increased Wednesday to a maximum of four years. Some stock markets will close on Thursday on the Christmas holiday and most on Friday.
Investors are looking beyond President Donald Trump’s demand for changes in pandemic relief in the U.S., hoping that stimulus spending will come sooner or later. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took advantage of Trump’s request for larger individual checks and said the House would try to approve this additional measure during a pro forma session on Thursday.
“At the moment, we have a lot of animal spirits coming up at the end of the year,” Michael Purves, founder and CEO of Tallbacken Capital Advisers, said on Bloomberg TV. “As constructive as I am about the markets in the longer term, I hope there will be a kind of hangover to process that excessive extent sometime later this winter.”
Meanwhile, Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE have agreed to double the supply of their Covid-19 vaccine to the United States. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed tougher restrictions in an area of England as authorities tried to control a rapidly spreading coronavirus strain.
UK and European Union negotiators have reached the draft of a post-Brexit trade agreement and are now working to finalize the drafting of the agreement.
Here are the main movements in the markets:
Stocks
- Futures on the S&P 500 added 0.1% as of 10:41 am in Tokyo. The indicator rose 0.1% on Wednesday.
- Japan’s Topix index advanced 0.6%.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.2%.
- Shanghai Composite added 0.3%.
- South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.8%.
- Australia’s S & P / ASX 200 index rose 0.7%.
Coins
- The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was stable after falling 0.4% on Wednesday.
- The yen was at 103.57 per dollar.
- The euro bought $ 1.2207, up 0.2%.
- The pound was up 0.3% to $ 1.3533.
- The offshore yuan was trading at 6.5258 per dollar.
Titles
- Yield on 10-year Treasury bonds increased by a basis point to 0.95%.
- Australia’s 10-year yield rose six basis points to 0.99%.
Commodities
- West Texas Intermediate crude gained 0.2% to $ 48.18 a barrel.
- Gold rose 0.2% to $ 1,877.24 an ounce.
– With the help of Kamaron Leach