The overall equities sentiment is looking more positive after rout
Wall Street stocks saw another bearish session on Monday, with the S&P 500 Index notching a fresh closing low for the year while the Dow Jones has entered a bear market territory. The sell-off continued amid worries about rising borrowing costs and the elevated dollar. Also, investors remain depressed by the fact that many central banks are getting more hawkish at a time when economic risks keep rising globally. The S&P 500 declined 1.03%, the Dow dropped 1.11%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6%.
Asian equities were mostly higher on Tuesday after deep losses at the start of the week. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.3%. The Shanghai Composite surged 1.4% even as the data showed that China’s industrial profits for January to August fell 2.1% from the same period a year ago. The Nikkei 225 in Japan rose 0.53%, South Korea’s Kospi added just 0.13% while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 surged 0.41%. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index lost less than 0.1%.
In Europe, stocks opened higher on Tuesday, as regional markets attempted to recover after a painful start to the week. The pan-European Stoxx 600 added 0.8% in early trade. The overall equities sentiment is looking more positive for now, with US stock index futures rebounding in early pre-market deals. Later in the day, Fed speakers could bring more volatility to the markets, with recovery attempts looking too modest and shallow for the time being.
The dollar corrects lower across the board after yesterday’s jump to fresh multi-year highs around 114.50. The USD index has settled around 113.60 in early European deals, losing nearly 0.5% on the day. The EURUSD pair bounced off long-term lows to regain the 0.9600 mark . However, the shared currency is unlikely to get back above parity any time soon as dollar demand could reemerge after some correction.
