BEIJING – Global stock markets were mixed on Monday ahead of what is expected to be a decision by the Federal Reserve this week to raise interest rates again amid investors’ hopes that the US central bank will scale back plans for further hikes.
Germany’s DAX rose 0.2% to 13,269.55, while Britain’s FTSE 100 was flat at 7,049.25. In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.2% to 6,262.91. Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.6%, while the Dow industrials were 0.5% lower.
Wall Street ended the week higher after Apple and other major companies reported strong earnings and closely watched inflation rose in September.
At this week’s meeting, the Fed is expected to announce another rate hike of 0.75 percentage points, triple the usual margin. Investors are looking for signs that officials are satisfied that earlier hikes introduced to cool inflation, which has hit near four-decade highs, are working, and that future hikes may be smaller.
Investors worry that rate hikes by the Fed and other central banks to cool inflation could push the global economy into recession. In March, the US Federal Reserve raised its key lending rate to a range of 3% to 3.25% from near zero.
“The tone of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will be important” after this week’s meeting, the IG’s Yap June Rong said in a report. Investors are looking for “increased concern about economic conditions” instead of “current determination to rein in inflation.”
In Asian trade, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.8% to 27,587.46 as the government said retail sales rose in September, although industrial production weakened.
The Shanghai Composite fell 0.8% to 2,893.48 after an industrial survey showed weaker output and demand. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.2% to 14,687.02.
Seoul’s Kospi added 1.1% to 2,293.61, while Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 rose 1.2% to 6,863.50.
On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 rose 2.5% on Friday after US government data showed consumer prices rose 6.2% from a year earlier in September, the same as the previous month. .
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.9%.
Core inflation, which excludes changing food and energy prices to show the underlying trend, accelerated to 5.1% from 4.9% in August. Powell and other Fed officials have said they are willing to keep interest rates high until they are satisfied that inflation has died down.
Also on Friday, government data showed that the increase in wages for American workers was in line with expectations. Powell cited wages as one of the indicators the Fed looks at when deciding whether to raise rates.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude lost 66 cents to $87.24 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. The contract fell $1.18 to $87.90 on Friday. Brent crude, used to measure international oil, was down 65 cents at $93.12 a barrel in London. It fell $1.19 to $95.77 on Friday.
The dollar rose to 148.27 yen from 147.53 yen on Friday. The euro fell to 99.35 cents from 99.55 cents.
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