World shares advance as China ups its stimulus and Japan's Ishiba is chosen to head its ruling party

[September 27, 2024]  By ZIMO ZHONG

HONG KONG (AP) — Global shares were mostly higher on Friday, boosted in Asia by China’s moves to rev up its economy.

The CAC 40 in Paris edged up 0.1% to 7,747.82 after France’s preliminary inflation rate fell sharply in September as the consumer price index rose 1.5% year-on-year in August, down from 2.2% in the previous month, according to official data.

Germany’s DAX gained 0.2% to 19,281.73. In London, the FTSE 100 rose 0.2% to 8,301.29.

Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both gave up less than 0.1%.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained more than 2.3% to 39,829.56 as ruling party lawmakers chose former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba to become Japan’s next prime minister. Ishiba, who will take over from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida next week, has proposed an Asian version of the NATO military alliance and a more equal Japan-U.S. security alliance.

The change at the helm was not expected to result in any major policy shift given that the ruling Liberal Democrats have held power for most of the past eight decades since World War II.

The yen also surged, as the U.S. dollar fell to 143.13 Japanese yen from 144.80 yen.

China’s central bank cut its reserve requirement for banks as of Friday as part of measures announced this week to help the property industry and support financial markets.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 3.6% to 20,632.30 and the Shanghai Composite index jumped 2.9% to 3,087.53.

Earlier Friday, the Shanghai Stock Exchange encountered glitches that hindered order processing and caused delays after the market opened. This led to a 6.7% increase in Shenzhen's main index, as investors flocked into that smaller market during the delay.

Trading returned to normal by noon, and the Shanghai Stock Exchange later said in a statement that it was still investigating the cause.

In the latest sign of the malaise hindering growth in the world's second-largest economy, the government reported that industrial profits fell nearly 18% year-on-year in August.

A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's stock prices, at a securities firm Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

Shares of Hong Kong’s property giant New World Development surged 19.4% on Friday trading after Adrian Cheng, the third-generation scion at the helm of the conglomerate, had been replaced. The firm reported an annual loss of over $2.4 billion in a profit warning last month, its first loss in nearly 20 years.

Elsewhere in Asia, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added nearly 0.1% to 8,212.20, while South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.8% to 2,649.78.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 added 0.4% to 5,745.37, setting an all-time high for the third time this week and the 42nd time this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6% to 42,175.11, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.6% to 18,190.29.

A round of reports on Thursday suggested the world’s largest economy may be doing better than expected.

Fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in the latest signal that layoffs remain relatively low across the economy. A separate report said the overall U.S. economy grew at a 3% annual rate during the spring, as previously estimated. That’s a solid rate.

The hope on Wall Street is for a form of financial nirvana where the U.S. economy’s growth holds steady, keeping corporate profits humming while the Federal Reserve continues to lower interest rates.

The Fed last week made a drastic turn in how it sets interest rates. It’s now cutting them to make things easier for the U.S. economy after keeping rates high for years in hopes of extinguishing high inflation. Lower rates not only make it less expensive to borrow money to buy a house, a car or things on credit cards, they can also boost prices for all kinds of investments.

In other dealings early Friday, benchmark U.S. crude oil picked up 2 cents to $67.69 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added 22 cents to $71.31 per barrel.

The euro was trading at $1.1139, down from $1.1176.

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