Stocks rally splutters as trade talks, data disappoint

LONDON: A four-day rally in world stocks ran out of steam on Thursday and the dollar touched a near three-month low as mixed signals from U.S.-China trade talks and caution at the Federal Reserve applied the brakes.

China said the three days of talks in Beijing had established a "foundation" to resolve differences, but gave virtually no details on key issues at stake.

A slew of weak data also dampened the mood. Again in China, factory-gate inflation was the slowest in more than two years, while worse-than-expected industrial figures in France provided more evidence that Europe is spluttering again.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index saw Paris drop as much as 0.8 percent and Germany's trade-sensitive DAX fall 0.3 percent, though both recovered some ground after the ECB said it was looking at another mass dump of ultra-cheap lending.

Wall Street was set to open firmly in the red though, which if it holds will be the first drop in the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial and Nasdaq in five days.

"I am beginning to get a little concerned about the path of the European industrial data," said State Street Global Markets' head of strategy Michael Metcalfe.

"It is raising the possibility of a technical recession in Europe. One of the big challenges is that, if this is replicated in Italy's data tomorrow, that potentially brings the budget questions back into the market's thoughts."

Despite a few isolated bright spots there were plenty of grim reports on Christmas trading from European and U.S. retailers, and Ford and Jaguar Land Rover both warned they were laying off thousands of their workers.

The soured sentiment saw the standard move into safe-haven government bonds that give a guaranteed return. Yields on German and French and government bonds - which move inversely to price - dropped towards recent two-year lows.

The European Central Bank then published the minutes from its December meeting which showed its officials had talked about pumping another round of ultra-cheap long-term financing into the euro zone banking system.

U.S. Treasury yields last stood at 2.697 percent, down from 2.710 percent on Wednesday, when Fed minutes showed its policymakers were becoming more cautious about future rate hikes.

The dollar remained near its lowest since mid-October. It was barely changed at $1.1542 to the euro , which had gained 0.9 percent against the dollar during the previous session, its biggest one-day gain since late June.

China's yuan had also muscled higher to breach the 6.8 per dollar level for the first time since August in both onshore  and offshore trade in Asia.

"This drop in the dollar is an overdue correction following a surprisingly robust few weeks, despite the massive collapse in U.S. rate expectations," said Ulrich Leuchtmann, currency strategist at Commerzbank.

OIL SLIPS

Asian shares performed fractionally better overnight on the weaker dollar and hopes of more economic stimulus in China.

But many stocks seesawed, and Tokyo and Shanghai both closed lower as markets parsed the trade talks and hoped that they will ultimately avert another ramping-up of U.S. tariffs in March.

Emerging market bond investors then got a major jolt as Lebanon's finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil told a local newspaper that it was weighing up a debt restructuring. Goldman Sachs had warned this week that such a move, if extreme enough, could potentially wipe out Lebanon's banks.

"The exposure of Lebanese banks to the sovereign (local debt and Eurobonds) amounts to some 55 trillion Lebanese pounds, almost double the 30 trillion LBP capital base of the banking system," the bank's analysts wrote.

Lebanon has the third largest public debt-to-GDP ratio in the world at around 150 percent.

Oil also caught investors' attention as Brent and U.S. crude fell as much as $1, having jumped overnight on signs of OPEC-led crude output cuts.

Brent crude was last trading at $61.23 a barrel and U.S. WTI was down at $52.11 cents. Industrial metals such as copper dipped a touch too.

Chris Weston, Melbourne-based head of research at the foreign exchange brokerage Pepperstone, said he viewed more gains in oil prices as a key driver for any further rise in risk appetite.

If U.S. crude futures can break through the $55 level, "you're going to see real yields probably lower. That's really good for the cost of money and taking some further headwinds out of the U.S. dollar," he said.