NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street pointed to gains before markets opened on Monday after plunging near the edge of a bear market to close the week on Friday.
Dow Jones Industrials futures rose 1% and the S&P 500 climbed 1.1% in premarket trading.
Benchmarks rose in Frankfurt, London and Tokyo and fell in Paris and Hong Kong. Oil prices have also increased.
Still, it has been a brutal time for major markets in the US and around the world.
On Friday, the S&P 500 fell more than 20% below its peak reached at the start of this year before buying late in the day to give it a small gain. He finished 18.7% below his record. It capped a seventh consecutive week of losses, the longest since 2001, when the dotcom bubble was bursting.
Inflation and rising interest rates, the war in Ukraine and the slowdown in the Chinese economy are hurting equities and raising fears of a possible recession in the United States.
Investors are eagerly awaiting the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy-setting meeting and consumer price updates, due later this week.
Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.1% at midday, while Germany’s DAX gained 0.8% and the CAC 40 in Paris gained 0.3%.
In Asian trading, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 1% to 27,001.52.
Visiting Japan, President Joe Biden launched a new US initiative on economic cooperation and trade. Called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the White House said it would help the US and Asian economies work more closely on issues like supply chains, digital trade, clean energy, worker protections and anti-corruption efforts.
The details were still to be negotiated, making it difficult how the framework could help American workers and businesses while serving the interests of partner countries.
The South Korean Kospi climbed 0.3% to 2,647.38.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged up 0.1% to 7,148.90 after Australia’s centre-left opposition party toppled the Conservative government that had held power for nearly a decade on Saturday.
Anthony Albanese was sworn in as Prime Minister after his Labor Party won its first election victory since 2007. Labor has pledged increased financial aid and a strong social safety net as Australia grapples with the highest inflation since 2001 and soaring house prices.
But analysts said the political stance of the newly elected administration was not significantly different from that of the incumbent government and major changes were not expected.
“While Labor may represent a slightly more fiscally friendly government than their predecessors, we don’t see much implications for financial markets in this election result,” the economists at ING Economics said. in a comment.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.2% to 20,470.06 while the Shanghai Composite was virtually unchanged at 3,146.86.
Hong Kong-traded shares in food delivery company Meituan lost 3.1% while e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding fell 3.4%.
Many technology stocks, considered among the most vulnerable to rising interest rates, have already fallen more than 20% this year. This includes a 37.2% drop for Tesla and a 69.1% drop for Netflix.
It’s a sharp turnaround from the powerful run Wall Street enjoyed after emerging from its last bear market in early 2020, at the start of the pandemic.
With inflation at its highest level in four decades, the Fed has moved from keeping interest rates extremely low to support markets and the economy to raising rates and taking other actions to curb inflation. The concern is that it might go too far or too fast.
Goldman Sachs economists recently put a 35% chance of a recession in the United States over the next two years.
Inflation has been painfully high for months. But market concerns grew after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which drove up prices at grocery stores and gas pumps, as the region is a major source of energy and grain.
In other trading, the benchmark U.S. crude oil added $1.12 to $111.40 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 39 cents to $110.28 on Friday.
Brent crude, used as a pricing basis for international trade, advanced $1.28 to $113.83 a barrel.
The US dollar slipped to 127.50 Japanese yen from 127.87 yen on Friday night. The euro fell from $1.0564 to $1.0678.
Associated Press, The Associated Press
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