Asian Shares Advance Shrugging off Wall Street Retreat
On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 index closed down 0.7% at 3,871.98. That gave it an 8% gain for October, but the index still is down 18.8% from its Jan. 3 peak.That was helped by optimism that the Federal Reserve might be ready to ease up on the aggressive pace of interest rate hikes as it tries to squash inflation.Stocks gained ground throughout October as investors shifted focus to the latest round of corporate earnings . More than half of the companies within the S&P 500 have reported results and shown overall earnings growth of 2.3%, according to FactSet.Companies have so far given investors a mixed bag of results and forecasts as Wall Street tries to get a better picture of the economy.Inflation is stubbornly hot. The Fed has been trying to rein that in by raising interest rates to slow economic activity . Investors worry that might send the economy into a recession.The widespread expectation is for it to push through another increase that’s triple the usual size at 0.75 percentage points. Wall Street is roughly split on whether it will do the same in December or shift to a smaller increase, according to CME Group .The European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported Monday that inflation hit 10.7% in October, another record in the 19 countries that use the euro currency, fueled by high prices for natural gas and electricity due to Russia’s war on Ukraine .Wall Street still has plenty of earnings to review from big companies this week. Pfizer will report its results on Tuesday, followed by CVS on Wednesday. Starbucks reports its results on Thursday.In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude oil gained $1.17 to $87.70 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the basis for pricing international oil, added $1.27 to $94.08 per barrel in London.
Stocks gained ground throughout October as investors shifted focus to the latest round of corporate earnings. More than half of the companies within the S&P 500 have reported results and shown overall earnings growth of 2.3%, according to FactSet. The Fed has been trying to rein that in by raising interest rates to slow economic activity.
The European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported Monday that inflation hit 10.7% in October, another record in the 19 countries that use the euro currency, fueled by high prices for natural gas and electricity due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
