World shares were mostly higher on Monday as China’s leaders began a major meeting expected to bring fresh pledges of help for the world’s second-largest economy. Oil prices gained more than $1 a barrel after the announcement of extended production cuts until the end of the year. In early European trading, Germany’s DAX slipped 0.1% to 19,228.81, while the CAC 40 in Paris edged 0.1% lower to 7,401.11.
Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3% to 8,199.56. The future for the S&P 500 inched up 0.1% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%. The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress is meeting this week, and analysts predict the government may endorse major spending initiatives to boost the economy after two straight quarters of growth below the government’s target of about 5% for the year.
In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.3% to 20,567.52, while the Shanghai Composite index picked up 1.2% to 3,310.21. Markets in Tokyo were closed for a holiday. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.6% to 8,164.60, and the Kospi in Seoul jumped 1.8% to 2,588.97.
China leaders seek to boost economy
Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 0.8%, while the Sensex in India tumbled 1.7%. On Friday, U.S. stock indexes closed higher.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, recovering somewhat from the day before, its worst in eight weeks. The Dow industrials added 0.7%, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.8%. Treasury yields pushed higher after a highly anticipated report said U.S. employers added only 12,000 workers to their payrolls last month, far short of the 115,000 in hiring that economists were expecting.
A separate report said U.S. manufacturing contracted last month more than economists had expected. The nearly unanimous expectation on Wall Street remains for the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point next week. The hope is that the economy will still avoid a recession, even with the slowdown in the job market, thanks in part to the anticipated cuts to the interest rates by the Fed.
In currency dealings early Monday, the dollar slipped to 152.17 Japanese yen from 152.42 yen late Friday. The euro rose to $1.0894 from $1.0881.
