BANGKOK (AP) – World shares were mixed yesterday after Wall Street benchmarks closed at three-month highs as investors cheered a report showing inflation cooled more than expected in July.
United States (US) futures edged higher and oil prices also advanced. The US government said on Wednesday that consumer inflation jumped 8.5 per cent in July from a year earlier.
But that was down from June’s four-decade high of 9.1 per cent.
Germany’s DAX edged 0.2 per cent lower, to 13,674.98, while in Paris the CAC 40 added 0.1 per cent to 6,531.38. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.1 per cent to 7,498.34. The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.2 per cent higher.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 surged 2.1 per cent on expectations that slower inflation will mean the Federal Reserve may moderate its interest rates hikes.
Technology stocks, cryptocurrencies and other investments that have been among the year’s biggest losers due to the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes led the way.
The Nasdaq composite, whose many high-growth and expensive-looking stocks have been particularly vulnerable to interest rates, jumped 2.9 per cent while the Dow industrials advanced 1.6 per cent.
Asian markets also took heart. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 2.4 per cent yesterday to 20,082.43, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 1.6 per cent, to 3,281.67. The Kospi in Seoul rose 1.7 per cent to 2,523.78. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 climbed 1.6 per cent to 7,071.00. Taiwan’s Taiex was up 1.7 per cent.
Tokyo’s markets were closed for a holiday.
In Thailand, the SET gave up 0.2 per cent after the country’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 0.75 per cent a day earlier. The Southeast Asian country’s economy has been hard hit by the pandemic, which ravaged its all-important tourism sector.
Despite the improved US inflation reading, analysts warned the war on higher prices is not over.
“It’s of course great to see the latest inflation print come lower-than-expected, but first, one data point doesn’t make a trend, and we had a similar surprise earlier this year, but then inflation spiked to fresh multi-decade highs the following month,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya of Swissquote Bank said in a report.
She noted that softer energy prices were the main factor tempering inflation, while prices for food, housing and wages pushed higher.
Gasoline prices paid by American drivers dipped to just under the USD4 mark for the first time in more than five months – good news for consumers who are struggling with high prices for many other essentials.
The AAA auto club said the national average for a gallon of regular was USD3.99 yesterday.
The shopping app GasBuddy reported that the national average was already down to USD3.98 on Wednesday.
The inflation data encouraged traders to scale back bets for how much the Fed will raise interest rates at its next meeting. Interest rates help set where prices go across financial markets and higher rates tend to pull down prices for everything from stocks to commodities to crypto.
Other reports this week will show how inflation is doing at the wholesale level and whether US households are still ratcheting down their expectations for coming inflation, an influential data point for Fed officials.
Recession worries have built as the highest inflation in 40 years squeezes households and corporations around the world. Wall Street is closely watching to see if the Fed can succeed in hitting the brakes on the economy and cooling inflation without veering into a recession.
The Federal Reserve will get a few more highly anticipated reports before its next announcement on interest rates, on September 21. They could also alter its stance. Those include data on hiring trends across the economy, due September 2, and the next update on consumer inflation, coming on September 13.
In other trading, US benchmark crude oil USD0.19 to USD92.12 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained USD1.43 to USD91.93 on Wednesday.
Brent crude, the basis for international pricing, picked up USD0.15 to USD97.55.
The US dollar slipped to JPY132.62 from JPY132.93 on Wednesday. The euro rose to USD1.0326 from USD1.0300.