By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global stocks rallied on Wednesday after recent losses as benchmark U.S. Treasury yields eased from three-month highs and oil prices fell below $90 a barrel.
The dollar surged to a 24-year peak against the yen and a 37-year high versus sterling, but the dollar index =USD was lower on the day.
Brent crude LCOc1 futures touched their lowest since early February, falling below levels seen prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Data showing China’s export growth slowed in August fueled demand worries. (Full Story)
Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina, said given the oversold conditions of stocks, it did not take much to create a bounce.
Oil prices fell and the dollar index weakened, and “those are two good catalysts,” she said.
Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields slipped after earlier hitting three-month highs, with the 10-year note yield US10YT=RR last at 3.28%, ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Thursday. (Full Story)
Concerns that inflation will remain persistently high and keep driving interest rates higher had lifted yields in recent weeks.
Investors have been anxious for more news from central banks on the trajectory of global interest rates.
The European Central Bank is widely expected to raise interest rates sharply when it meets this week, while the U.S. central bank is expected to raise rates by another 75 basis points at its Sept. 20 to 21 meeting. (Full Story)
All major S&P 500 sectors rose on the day apart from energy .SPNY, which fell 1.2% with the slide in oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 435.98 points, or 1.4%, to 31,581.28, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 71.68 points, or 1.83%, to 3,979.87 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 246.99 points, or 2.14%, to 11,791.90.
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The pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX lost 0.57% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS gained 1.06%.
U.S. stocks had been selling off since mid-August after hawkish comments from Powell and signs of an economic slowdown in Europe and China. (Full Story)
Helping the U.S. dollar recently, Japan’s dovish monetary policy and Europe’s economic problems have contrasted with a relatively stronger U.S. economy and a hawkish Fed. (Full Story)
The U.S. currency soared as high as 144.99 yen JPY=EBS, hitting the level for the first time since August 1998. It is now within a large leap of its 1998 high of 147.43. The dollar was last up 0.9% at 144.09 yen.
Against sterling GBP=D3, the greenback hit $1.1407, the lowest since 1985 and last down 0.1% at $1.1509.
Liz Truss, who took over as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday, vowed immediate action to help the economy, which faces double-digit inflation and an expected lengthy recession. (Full Story)
The euro EUR=EBS fell below 99 cents after dipping as low as $0.9864 on Tuesday, its lowest since October 2002.
On Wednesday, Europe’s single currency was last up 0.8% at US$0.9985, and the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, was last down 0.7%.
In the energy market, Brent crude LCOc1 futures settled down $4.83 at $88 a barrel, falling below $90 a barrel for the first since Feb. 8. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 settled down $4.94, or 5.7%, to $81.94, its lowest since January. (Full Story)
Spot gold XAU= added 0.9% to $1,716.70 an ounce.
(Additional reporting by Karen Brettell and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York and Elizabeth Howcroft in London, Editing by Angus MacSwan, William Maclean, Josie Kao and Deepa Babington)
