World shares higher as Wall St steadies itself on Alphabet rally

Wall Street steadied after Alphabet and other technology stocks rallied. It also got some relief from easing pressure from the bond market, where the latest discouraging report on the US job market bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon

Manila: World shares mostly traded higher on Thursday after a rally of technology stocks steadied Wall Street and a slide in the dollar made Asian assets more attractive. The future for the S&P 500 rose 0.1 per cent while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed less than 0.1 per cent.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX climbed 0.4 per cent to 23,690.74 while Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.1 per cent to 9,187.40. In Paris, the CAC 40 slipped 0.2 per cent to 7,703.00. Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.5 per cent to 42,580.27 while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 1 per cent to 8,826.50. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5 per cent to 3,200.83. Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 0.3 per cent while India’s BSE Sensex added 0.5 per cent.

The Chinese markets bucked the trend, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index down 1.1 per cent to 25,056.85. The Shanghai Composite index fell 1.3 per cent to 3,765.88 on fears regulators will intervene amid excessive stock gains and liquidity.

On Wednesday, Wall Street steadied after Alphabet and other technology stocks rallied. It also got some relief from easing pressure from the bond market, where the latest discouraging report on the US job market bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon to support the economy.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.5 per cent to break the two-day losing slide it had been on since setting its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 24 points, or 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1 per cent. Google’s parent company was one of the strongest forces lifting the market and jumped 9.1 per cent after avoiding some of the worst-case scenarios in its antitrust case. Also helping to steady Wall Street was a calming bond market.

A day earlier, yields climbed worldwide on worries about governments’ abilities to repay their growing mountains of debt, as well as concerns that President Donald Trump’s pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut short-term interest rates could lead to higher inflation in the long term. Such worries have pushed investors to demand higher yields before lending money to governments. And when bonds are paying more in interest, investors feel less need to pay high prices for stocks, which are riskier investments. On Wednesday, Treasury yields retreated following the latest report on the US job market, which came in weaker than expected.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.22 per cent from 4.28 per cent late Tuesday, for example.