European stocks edged towards consecutive daily gains for the first time in three weeks on Wednesday, drawing support from a weak euro as investors moved to price in a US interest rate rise, boosting the dollar.
The earlier mood was more risk averse, with the prospect of higher US rates in coming months amid uncertainty about the strength of the global economy dragging Asian stocks lower and flattening the US yield curve. The difference between 10-year and two-year US treasury yields fell to its lowest in a month. A flattening curve is often seen as a harbinger of low growth, inflation and rates.
Initial losses recovered
But European stocks recovered initial losses, the US yield curve bounced and US futures turned green to indicate a slightly higher open on Wall Street. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq came within a whisker of all-time highs on Tuesday. Some observers said that, on a light day for data, investors' nerves may have been soothed by signs that the anticipated economic seizure in Britain – and beyond – from the shock vote in June to leave the European Union had not materialised.
“Brexit? What Brexit?” asked Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank. “In the rest of the EU, the repercussions of the Brexit vote have been rather mild.”
The FTSEuroFirst index of the leading 300 European shares was up 0.5 per cent at 1,358 points, having earlier fallen as much as 0.4 per cent, and Germany's DAX staged a similar rebound to trade up 0.5 per cent. Britain's FTSE 100 was little changed, capped by weakness in British mining giant Glencore after it reported a fall in underlying profit and lowered its debt target.
Weaker yen
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.4 per cent, with traders cashing in on its rise of more than 14 per cent since late June. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.6 per cent, supported by a slightly weaker yen, while MSCI’s main global stock index fell 0.1 per cent.
The dollar consolidated ahead of a gathering of global central bankers later this week in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the focus will be on Friday's keynote speech by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen.
Investors will be hoping for further clues on when the Fed will follow up last December’s rate hike with another. Futures markets assign a roughly one-in-five chance it will be September, and 50-50 odds by the end of the year.
The dollar was up slightly against the yen at 100.25 yen , holding above the psychologically important 100 level, and the euro fell 0.25 per cent to $1.1274. – (Reuters)
