World stocks hit one-month high on U.S. earnings, China support

Reuters  |  NEW YORK 

By Trevor Hunnicutt

MSCI's global stock index <.MIWD00000PUS> gained 0.58 percent.

The focus in the remained the banner corporate earnings reporting season which is in its busiest week for the quarter.

To date, 83 percent of the 110 stock index companies that have posted results have beaten profit estimates, according to I/B/E/S.

"The results have been quite strong so investors have been a little more exuberant than they were at the end of June when the headlines were less about companies beating earnings than about the beating the tariff trade drum," said Matthew Bartolini, at

earnings from parent , reported late Monday, also helped the U.S. to gain 0.5 percent.

Inc , part of the so-called FAANG group of popular tech stocks that have led the U.S. market's near-decade bull run, jumped gained 3.89 percent to a record high after a better-than-expected quarterly revenue jump.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 197.65 points, or 0.79 percent, to 25,241.94, the <.SPX> gained 13.42 points, or 0.48 percent, to 2,820.4 and the <.IXIC> dropped 1.11 points, or 0.01 percent, to 7,840.77. [.N]

Metals and surged thanks to hopes for Chinese tax cuts and a lower yuan.

Clawing its way back from prices near one-year lows, copper rose 2.15 percent to $6,262.00 a tonne. U.S. settled up 0.93 percent at $68.52 per barrel while Brent gained 0.52 percent to $73.44.

China's offshore yuan hit a one-year low and yields jumped after the government said it would cut taxes to support economic growth and traders bet on further monetary policy easing. blue chips <.CSI300> closed up 1.5 percent at a one-month high.

"The big story is that the Chinese currency continues to slide," said

"The government is moving towards policies that are supporting growth," he added, saying the trend was likely to bring a reaction from the eventually.

The Chinese offshore yuan fell nearly 0.6 percent to a low of 6.8448 per dollar, its weakest since June 2017, before rebounding. (PBOC) had set conversion rates at their weakest in a year, a move suggesting that currencies may be weaponized in a flaring U.S.-trade conflict.

"In our view, given how little is priced, there is limited room for further escalation in trade tensions and no room whatsoever for competitive devaluation, let alone a currency war," wrote analysts from the in a note.

Bonds yields globally were volatile following speculation that the (BoJ) may soon trim its massive stimulus.

yields gyrated, with ten-year benchmark notes trading between a one-month high of 2.973 percent and as low as 2.945 before ending the day higher in price as investors showed strong demand for a two-year note auctioned on Tuesday.

bulls had been smarting from speculation that the BoJ is close to scaling back its monetary stimulus, a risk that lifted long-term borrowing costs globally.

Markets were worried that Japanese investors would have less incentive to hunt offshore for yield, said

"The 10-basis-point steepening in the Japanese is massive in the context of a market that rarely moves more than 1 basis point," she said.

"It reflects a broader fear that central banks are reducing their purchases while U.S. bond supply is set to rise significantly."

Part of the shift in yields was caused by talk that data on second-quarter U.S. economic growth, due on Friday, would top current, 4.1 percent forecasts.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by in Sydney, Marc Jones and Abhinav Ramnarayan in London and Andres Guerra Luz in New York; Editing by Clive McKeef)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Wed, July 25 2018. 02:13 IST