Stocks slip, dollar rebounds on rekindled trade hopes

By Herbert Lash

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar rebounded and global equity markets pared losses on Thursday as efforts by China to smooth the path forward in U.S.-Sino trade talks helped sooth investor sentiment, though fears remained that a phase one deal might not occur until next year.

Oil prices rose to a two-month high after Reuters reported the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies are likely to extend existing output cuts until mid-2020.

Yields on U.S. Treasury debt rose, snapping three sessions of declines, bolstered by China saying it was willing to work with the United States to resolve core trade concerns, which rekindled some hope for a bilateral deal.

More from Business

Hyundai India’s Rs 27,870 crore IPO oversubscribed by 2.28X, largely driven by institutional investors How Indian fintech startups are driving Malaysia’s UPI-like digital payments revolution

A Wall Street Journal report that said China had invited top U.S. trade negotiators for a new round of face-to-face talks in Beijing also lifted sentiment.

Germany’s trade-sensitive DAX index <.GDAXI> pared most losses to close 0.16% lower, while the Dow Industrials and S&P 500 index also pared losses and were down slightly with an hour of trading remaining in the session.

“This just shows that the trade deal is not dead and that we will get some sort of an extended truce, which is a positive,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Tata Harrier EV vs Mahindra XEV 9e: Design and road presence compared

As Trump weaponises tariff, Fed sees a bigger worry: Not jobs, but rising prices in America

“What we’re going through now is a market beginning to realize the daily rhetoric of the trade news – one day positive, one day negative – is beginning to wear off,” he said, adding he would not be surprised to see stocks end the day higher.

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe <.MIWD00000PUS> shed 0.23%, while the pan-European STOXX 600 index <.STOXX> lost 0.40%.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> fell 11.05 points, or 0.04%, to 27,810.04. The S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 1.07 points, or 0.03%, to 3,107.39 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 9.10 points, or 0.11%, to 8,517.63.

The latest news on the trade deal came after a series of headlines earlier this week that suggested ongoing talks were unravelling.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that negotiations to finalise a deal may extend into next year as Beijing presses for more extensive tariff rollbacks and the Trump administration counters with heightened demands of its own.

Benchmark German bond yields also ended a three-day streak of declines to edge higher.

German 10-year bond yields, considered a euro zone benchmark, rose more than 2 basis points to -0.325%.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 12/32 in price to push yields up to 1.7774%.

The dollar firmed late in the session.

The dollar index <.DXY> rose 0.06%, with the euro down 0.14% to $1.1057. The Japanese yen weakened 0.04% versus the greenback at 108.67 per dollar.

Brent crude settled up $1.57 at $63.97 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained $1.57 to settle at $58.58 a barrel.

Both benchmarks had fallen earlier in the session.

Gold prices eased. U.S. gold futures fell 0.7% to settle at $1,463.60 per ounce.

(Reporting by Herbert Lash, additional reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Dan Grebler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.