Evergrande abandoned a $2.6-billion sale of a stake in a subsidiary
Wall Street stocks climbed overnight, with Dow Jones Industrial Average jumping to a record high as investor sentiment was fueled by stronger-than-expected earnings reports. Of note, Verizon was one of the biggest gainers in the index, rallying over 2% after the company’s earnings topped estimates for the third quarter. As such, the Dow and the S&P 500 added 0.4% each while the Nasdaq shed less than 0.1%.
In Asia, the upbeat mood ebbed on fresh worries about China’s property sector after an asset sale at Evergrande collapsed. As a result, regional stocks eked just marginal gains on Thursday. However, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged 0.3% higher to touch a one-month top. Overnight, China Evergrande said it abandoned a $2.6-billion sale of a stake in a subsidiary and that it had made no progress on other sales. Against this backdrop, the company’s stocks fell over 13% in Hong Kong.
In currencies, the dollar has been on the defensive these days as risk-on tone prevails in the global financial markets, but rising US Treasury bond yields continue to help the currency limit its losses against its major rivals. Late on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book showed that the US economy continued to grow at a “modest to moderate” pace in September and early October. However, the report failed to affect dollar dynamics.
EURUSD has been retaining a bullish bias for the seventh session in a row on Thursday, hovering above the descending 20-DMA these days. Still, the pair struggles to regain the 1.1670 intermediate barrier on the way towards the 1.1700 figure. Later today, weekly initial jobless claims, existing home sales, and Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey could set a short-term direction for the USD-pairs. In recent trading, the safe-haven demand for the USD picked up, pushing the currency into the positive territory versus major rivals.
