LDN - Business

Stock market today: Asian markets are mixed after another winning close on Wall Street

[October 21, 2024] By ELAINE KURTENBACH

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Monday after U.S. stocks rose to records to close out their latest winning week. U.S. futures also were mixed and oil prices climbed.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng sank 1.5% to 20,869.39, while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.2% to 3,268.11. The A-share index of the smaller market in Shenzhen picked up 1.6%.

China cut its one-year and five-year Loan Prime Rates, which are reference rates for lending. Lower rates can help reduce pressure on borrowers, particulary property developers that have suffered following a crackdown on excessive borrowing several years ago. But any impact on market sentiment appeared to be short-lived.

Given that the main constrain is weak demand, the “heavy lifting” will have to come from government spending, Zichun Huang of Capital Economics said in a report. China's Finance Ministry has pledged to ramp up such outlays in coming months, “However, we are still skeptical that fiscal easing will be large enough to deliver anything more than a modest and short-lived pick-up in activity.”

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index edged 0.1% lower to 38,954.60, while the Kospi in Seoul advanced 0.4% to 2,604.92. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.7% higher at 8,344.40.

Oil prices climbed after tumbling last week as worries receded that Israel will attack Iranian oil facilities as part of its retaliation for Iran’s missile attack early this month. Iran is a major producer of crude, and a strike could upend its exports to China and elsewhere. Concerns about the strength of demand from China have also hit oil prices.

Early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude was up 52 cents at $69.21 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 41 cents to $73.47 per barrel.

The dollar rose to 149.78 Japanese yen from 149.57 yen late Friday. The yen has weakened recently on expectations that the pace of interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan may be slower than earlier thought.

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A currency trader reads documents near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

The euro slipped to $1.0856 from $1.0866 late Friday.

On Friday, Wall Street logged more records.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to squeak past the all-time high it had set early this week, closing at 5,864.67. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% higher to 43,275.91, another record. The Nasdaq composite climbed 0.6% to 18,489.55.

Trading overall on Wall Street remained relatively calm, as the S&P 500 closed its sixth straight winning week. That’s its longest such winning streak of 2024.

Solid economic data has boosted hopes the U.S. economy can make a perfect escape from the worst inflation in generations, one that ends without a painful recession that many investors had seen as nearly inevitable. And with the Federal Reserve now cutting interest rates to keep the economy humming, the expectation among optimists is that stocks can rise even further.

Traders are coalescing around the idea that the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point at its next meeting in November. Expectations had been high earlier for the Fed to deliver another larger-than-usual cut of half a percentage point, but strong updates on the economy have eliminated those. The federal funds rate is currently sitting in a range of 4.75% to 5%.

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