World Week Ahead: Stimulus bolsters equities
World Week Ahead: Stimulus bolsters equities
By Margreet Dietz
May 11 (BusinessDesk) - Bets that central bankers will continue to keep monetary policy easy, including the latest interest rate cut in China, is likely to help propel global equities still higher this week.
China’s move, which had been
anticipated, isn’t expected to be the last time the
country’s central bank seeks to stoke
growth.
"China's economy is still facing relatively
big downward pressure," the People’s Bank of China said.
"At the same time, the overall level of domestic prices
remains low, and real interest rates are still higher than
the historical average," it said.
On a positive
note, after some disappointing data, the US government on
Friday said American companies hired 223,000 workers in
April, meeting expectations and easing concerns about the
outlook for the world’s biggest economy. The unemployment
rate slipped to 5.4 percent, the lowest since May
2008.
The data suggests that the Federal Reserve
may well delay lifting interest rates until later in the
year — good news for equities as it bolsters their
investment allure. Several Fed policymakers had been making
noises about a potential June hike.
"We see this
report as reducing concerns that weak first-quarter growth
represents a loss of economic momentum," Michael Gapen,
chief US economist at Barclays in New York, told Reuters,
adding the Fed is unlikely to raise rate before September.
On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
rallied 1.5 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index
climbed 1.4 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index
advanced 1.2 percent. For the week, the Dow added 0.9
percent, the S&P 500 Index rose 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq
slipped 0.04 percent.
“You want an economy
growing north of 200,000 jobs, but if you get closer to
300,000 you start to have conversations about inflationary
pressures and the economy heating up too fast, so this
number is perfect,” Darrell Cronk, president of Wells
Fargo Investment Institute in New York, told
Bloomberg.
Foreign exchange investors were far less
impressed.
“It really hasn’t been the barn
burner that the dollar bulls were hoping for,” Bipan Rai,
director of foreign-exchange strategy at Canadian Imperial
Bank of Commerce’s CIBC World Markets unit, told
Bloomberg. “There is scope for the dollar to remain on the
defensive.”
Investors will eye any clues on rates
when San Francisco Fed President John Williams talks about
the economic outlook, in New York, on Tuesday.
The
highlight report this week will be retail sales, given that
consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of economic
activity in the US. But of course there will be more data to
be parsed: the NFIB small business optimism index, due
Tuesday; retail sales, import and export prices, and
business inventories, due Wednesday; weekly jobless claims,
and the producer price index, due Thursday; and the Empire
State manufacturing survey, industrial production, and
consumer sentiment, due Friday.
Last week,
Europe’s Stoxx 600 Index rose 1.4 percent, bolstered by
Friday’s 2.9 percent rally.
For investors, the
key focus will be what happens next for Greece. Euro-zone
ministers meet in Brussels on Monday in their latest effort
to push Athens into a cash-for-reform accord.
On
Wednesday, the focus will shift to London where Bank of
England Governor Mark Carney will speak on new growth and
inflation forecasts for the UK.
Among companies
reporting results in the coming days: Cisco, Macy’s,
Nissan, Actavis and Singapore
Airlines.
(BusinessDesk)