World shares were mostly higher on Monday as China’s leaders began a major meeting expected to bring fresh pledges of help for the world’s second-largest economy. Oil prices gained more than $1 a barrel after the OPEC+ oil producing nations said they would extend production cuts until the end of the year. No reason was given for the move, which came ahead of the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday.
U.S. benchmark crude oil gained $1.41 to $70.90 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up $1.37 to $74.47 a barrel. In early European trading, Germany's DAX slipped 0.1% to 19,228.81, while the CAC 40 in Paris edged 0.1% lower to 7,401.11. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.3% to 8,199.56. The future for the S&P 500 inched up 0.1% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%.
The Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress is meeting this week and analysts were predicting the government may endorse major spending initiatives to boost the economy after two straight quarters of growth below the government's target of about 5% for the year. “Markets are alive with whispers of a fresh stimulus package, setting expectations sky-high and creating a buzz that’s hard to ignore,” said a commentary.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.3% to 20,567.52, while the Shanghai Composite index picked up 1.2% to 3,310.21. Markets in Tokyo were closed for a holiday. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.6% to 8,164.60 and the Kospi in Seoul jumped 1.8% to 2,588.97. Taiwan's Taiex advanced 0.8%, while the Sensex in India tumbled 1.7%.
On Friday, Amazon led U.S. stock indexes higher, while a surprisingly weak jobs report marred by some unusual occurrences cemented bets on Wall Street for another cut to interest rates next week. The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, recovering somewhat from the day before, its worst in eight weeks. The Dow industrials added 0.7%, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.8%.
Treasury yields pushed higher after a highly anticipated report said U.S. employers added only 12,000 workers to their payrolls last month, far short of the 115,000 in hiring that economists were expecting or the 223,00 jobs that employers created in September. A separate report said U.S. manufacturing contracted last month by more than economists had expected. It’s been one of the areas of the economy hurt most by the Federal Reserve’s keeping interest rates at a two-decade high until September.
The nearly unanimous expectation on Wall Street remains for the Fed to cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point next week. The hope on Wall Street is that the economy will still avoid a recession, even with the slowdown in the job market, thanks in part to coming cuts to interest rates by the Fed. The overall economy has so far remained more resilient than feared.
In currency dealings early Monday, the dollar slipped to 152.17 Japanese yen from 152.42 yen late Friday. The euro rose $1.0894 from $1.0881.
