Tokyo, Oct 12 (AP) Global shares mostly rose Thursday as investors awaited the release of US consumer price data and kept a cautious watch on the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
France’s CAC 40 added 0.4 per cent in early trading to 7,161.62. Germany’s DAX rose 0.5 per cent to 15,541.01, while Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.7 per cent to 7,672.18. The futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were up 0.2 per cent.
Markets have been mostly struggling since the summer as longer-term yields shoot higher in the US bond market, weighing on prices for all kinds of investments. Some relief has come this week, and yields have eased after officials at the Federal Reserve suggested they may be done raising their main overnight interest rate.
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A report on US consumer prices is due later Thursday, a day after a report on wholesale inflation came in hotter than expected. Economists said that may not be enough to force the Fed to raise its main interest rate again.
Forecasts suggest consumer inflation eased again last month, though the decline might have slowed since summer, a reminder that the outsize price pressures of the past two years will take more time to cool.
Minutes from the Fed’s meeting last month suggested officials see the outlook for the US economy as particularly uncertain. They said they were ready to “proceed carefully” in deciding what to do next with rates.
“Recent remarks from FOMC members have leaned dovish, suggesting that the Fed might maintain current short-term rates,” Anderson Alves at ActivTrades said in a report, referring to the US Federal Reserve’s action on interest rates.
Tensions in the Middle East also are under the spotlight, he said. As air strikes devastated Gaza, Israel said was preparing for possible ground assault.
In Asian trading, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 jumped 1.8 per cent to finish at 32,494.66. Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 inched up less than 0.1 per cent to 7,091.00. South Korea’s Kospi added 1.2 per cent to 2,479.82. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 1.9 per cent to 18,238.21, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.9 per cent to 3,107.90.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent and the Dow industrials added 0.2 per cent. The Nasdaq composite gained 0.7 per cent.
Oil prices have given back much of their strong gains from earlier this week, triggered by fighting in Gaza. Though the area doesn’t produce much oil, the worry is that the violence could spill into the politics around the crude market and hurt the flow of petroleum.
On Thursday, benchmark US crude rose 72 cents to USD 84.21 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It slumped USD 2.48 to settle at USD 83.49 on Wednesday. Brent crude, the international standard, added 95 cents to USD 86.77 per barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 149.10 Japanese yen from 149.07 yen. The euro cost USD 1.0627, little changed from USD 1.0626. (AP)
