Global Market: Stocks Grind Higher on Recovery Hopes

KONTAN.CO.ID - LONDON/SYDNEY (Reuters). Europe’s shares added to their best gains in almost a month as safety plays lost their lustre on Wednesday, with hopes of a rapid economic recovery standing firm against a resurgence of global coronavirus cases.

Data showed U.S. retail sales bounced back sharply in May, but new infections have hit record highs in six U.S. states and China cut flights and closed schools to contain a fresh outbreak in Beijing.

The theme of a strong global economic rebound “will need to be balanced against the 2nd wave COVID risks which are more difficult to assess, and we would argue investors have assumed to be perhaps more modest than in reality,” said MUFG’s Head of Research Derek Halpenny.

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Politics also lurked as a worry with India reporting 20 of its soldiers had been killed in clashes with Chinese troops at a disputed border site, while North Korea rejected a South Korean offer to send special envoys and said it would redeploy troops at the border. That was enough to inject a tinge of caution into trading.

Japan’s Nikkei eased 0.5%, after jumping almost 5% on Tuesday for its biggest daily gain in three months.

Europe’s STOXX 600 saw its early 1% gains pruned nearly half [EU.] but all the main indexes were firmly in positive territory, and U.S. S&P 500 futures pushed up having spent most of the Asian session wavering either side of flat. 

Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, used to reduce inflammation in other diseases such as arthritis, reduced death rates by around a third among the most severely ill COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital.

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“It is one of the best pieces of news we’ve had through this whole crisis,” Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.

MSCI’s broadest index of World shares crawled 0.2% higher, having climbed 2.2% the previous day to reclaim a good portion of the ground it lost last week.

Chinese blue chips recovered from an early dip to finish steady. That followed a robust session on Wall Street overnight. The Dow ended Tuesday up 2.04%, while the S&P 500 gained 1.90% and the Nasdaq 1.75%.

Hopes for recovery had been bolstered by the data showing U.S. retail sales data jumped by a record 17.7% in May, recovering more than half the losses of the previous two months, though industrial output still lagged.

The Trump administration was also reportedly preparing an up-to $1 trillion infrastructure package, something that was initially promised more than three years ago.

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