LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Stock markets climbed and oil prices steadied Monday on easing concerns over tight crude supplies and decades-high inflation, traders said.
Turkey’s lira was stable against the dollar and euro after official data showed the country’s inflation had soared to a fresh record high.
Elsewhere, trading was halted on Sri Lanka’s stock exchange seconds after opening Monday as the island nation’s president offered to share power with the opposition.
Protests demanding the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa grew over unprecedented food and fuel shortages along with record inflation and crippling power cuts in the South Asian country.
Sri Lanka’s stock market slid more than the five percent in value — the threshold needed to trigger an automatic stop.
On the corporate front, Twitter’s stock soared by more than 25 percent in pre-market trade after Tesla boss Elon Musk took a major stake in the social media giant.
According to a document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk acquired nearly 73.5 million Twitter shares — a 9.2-percent stake in the company.
Ahead of Wall Street’s reopening, other major stock markets “continued their cautious grind higher, as investors took solace from a US economy which is showing increasing signs of being able to withstand the likely onslaught of interest rate rises to come”, noted Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor.
The world’s top economy added 431,000 jobs in March while the US unemployment rate fell to just slightly above pre-pandemic levels, official data showed Friday.
Economists viewed the figures as reinforcing the Federal Reserve’s commitment to forcefully raising interest rates, perhaps by half a percentage point at its meeting next month, which would be double the increase it announced when it began hiking in March.
Stock markets Monday were helped by steadier oil prices after recent surges triggered by tight supply concerns, notably owing to the invasion of Ukraine by major crude producer Russia.
The 31-nation International Energy Agency on Friday agreed to tap its vast reserves to offset the removal of Russian exports.
There was some cheer also from news of a 60-day ceasefire in Yemen’s six-year civil war that has seen several attacks on Saudi facilities, in turn hitting output from the world’s biggest oil producer.
– Key figures around 1100 GMT –
London – FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 7,555.73 points
Frankfurt – DAX: FLAT at 14,450.49
Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.2 percent at 6,700.38
EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.1 percent at 3,924.35
Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.3 percent at 27,736.47 (close)
Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 2.1 percent at 22,502.31 (close)
Shanghai – Composite: Closed for a holiday
New York – Dow: UP 0.4 percent at 34,818.27 (close)
Brent North Sea crude: FLAT at $104.37 per barrel
West Texas Intermediate: FLAT at $99.31 per barrel
Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1002 from $1.1049 late Friday
Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3098 from $1.3118
Euro/pound: DOWN at 84.00 pence from 84.24 pence
Dollar/yen: UP at 122.76 yen from 122.49 yen
© Agence France-Presse