TOKYO –
Global shares were mostly higher on Thursday as fears of turmoil in the banking sector eased and a top Chinese leader said the No. 2 economy was gaining momentum.
France’s CAC 40 rose nearly 0.9% to 7,250.49. Germany’s DAX rose 1.0% to 15,484.54. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4% to 7,597.14.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 0.4% and contracts for the S&P 500 rose 0.4%. Oil prices increase.
In Asian trade, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.4 percent to 27,782.93. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.0% to 7,122.30. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.4 percent to 2,453.16.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.6 percent to 20,309.13, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.7 percent to 3,261.25 after China’s new No. 2 leader, Premier Li Qiang, said a rebound after a long recession accelerated in March.
Mr. Li said the economy showed “encouraging recovery” in January and February at the Boao Forum for Asia, an event that brings together businessmen and politicians on the southern island of Hainan. .
“The situation in March was even better,” he said.
The markets have been plagued by worries about banks and concerns that the sector could crack under the pressure of much higher interest rates.
Aggressive actions by regulators helped calm markets as investors focused on how central banks might adjust their interest rate policy to reflect lingering worries about How higher interest rates can affect lenders.
But fear levels among stock investors on Wall Street fell to near-equal levels on March 8, a day before Silicon Valley Bank customers unexpectedly withdrew $42 billion in panic. . It became the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history and caused increased scrutiny of banks around the world.
After regulators in Switzerland brokered rival UBS takeover of Credit Suisse, UBS said it would bring back former CEO Sergio Ermotti to help it take over Credit Suisse. Ermotti led a change at UBS after the 2008 financial crisis.
The road ahead for the Federal Reserve and other central banks has become much more difficult because of the difficulties of the banking industry. Typically, inflation that remains high around the world will require even higher interest rates. But that would risk putting more pressure on banks, which could pull back on lending and squeeze the economy.
For now, a solid job market has been supporting the US economy, even as parts of it weaken due to higher interest rates.
In energy trading, the price of U.S. benchmark crude rose 31 cents to $73.28 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 33 cents to $78.61 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar fell to 132.43 Japanese yen from 132.75 yen. The euro is priced at $1.0867, inching up from $1.0847.
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AP business writer Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed
