LONDON: World stock markets were mixed on Friday as traders awaited the release of key US jobs data.
Investors treaded carefully after China-US trade talks ended with no deal but with both sides sounding notes of optimism and setting up more high-level meetings later this month.
Friday's release of the US jobs data comes days after the Federal Reserve fuelled a rally on Wall Street by signalling a slowdown in its pace of American interest rate hikes this year.
The non-farm payrolls figures will be closely watched for an idea about the state of the world's number-one economy, with the Fed having already warned of a global slowdown.
"Positive Sino-US trade talks and a more dovish Fed have dragged on the dollar over the last month or two so some bullish (US jobs) headlines may be welcomed," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda trading group.
Earlier this week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the case for further US rate hikes had "weakened somewhat", pushing the dollar lower.
Separately, official data showed Friday that eurozone inflation is moving further away from the European Central Bank's target of 2.0 percent -- indicating that the ECB would be less likely to raise interest rates this year.
In foreign exchange activity, the European single currency rose against the dollar.
Meanwhile, after the much-anticipated US-China trade meeting, President Donald Trump hailed "tremendous progress" but warned the "hard deadline" of March 1 remained in place, after which US tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods will be imposed.
For its part, Beijing said they held "candid, specific and fruitful" discussions and had agreed to increase cooperation on intellectual property -- a major source of White House anger with China -- and boost imports of US goods.
Trump's top two economic officials will visit Beijing later this month, after which he said he will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping to hammer out the final deal.
The Shanghai stock market jumped Friday to close up 1.3 percent, as traders welcomed news that authorities had relaxed certain rules to make investing easier.
On Wall Street Thursday, stocks finished a banner month on a mostly positive note, with the Dow notching its best January in 30 years, reversing the bruising finale to 2018.
Comments
Comments are closed.