The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Nikkei 225 index closed today’s session up 1.46%. Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges were closed for the Chinese New Year. Stock exchanges in Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore also closed. The Sydney Stock Exchange rallied 0.44%.
US futures barely moved after the solid session on Wall Street the day before.
Yesterday the Dow Jones gained 254 points, +0.76%, closing at 33,629.56. The S&P 500 rose 47 points or 1.19% to 4,019.81. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 224 points, or 2.01%, to 11,364.41. The purchases, in particular, of technological stocks have supported the US stock exchange.
The Nasdaq closed the previous session up sharply, over 2% for the second consecutive session, after last Friday’s +2.66%.
Strong buys on Tesla and Apple stocks, up 7.7% and 3.2% respectively. Stocks continue to benefit from news of the reopening of China’s economy.
At 7.35am Italian time, futures on the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 are trading around parity.
From the macroeconomic front of Japan, the manufacturing PMI was announced, which suffered a contraction for the third consecutive month. This is what emerges from the preliminary reading of the data, compiled jointly by Jibun Markit and S&P Global.
The manufacturing PMI stood at 48.9 points, as in December, weighed down by the components of factory production and new orders, which fell for the seventh consecutive month.
The contraction is confirmed by the value of the figure below 50 points, the dividing line between the phase of contraction – values below – and expansion – values above.
On the other hand, Japan’s services PMI did well, rising to 52.4 points in January, the record for the last three months, compared to the previous 51.1 points.
Rates on 10-year US Treasuries are down to 3.517%; those at two years drop to 4.229%.
In addition to the quarterly results, the focus remains on Jerome Powell’s Fed’s next moves.
According to data from the CME Group, the markets are pricing in a 99.7% probability of a 25 basis point monetary tightening by the Fed on February 1, which would bring the cost of US money to the new range including between 4.5% and 4.75%.