LONDON (Reuters) – Global shares fell and the dollar hit a two-month high on Thursday on investor concern about another economic hit from the coronavirus pandemic, ahead of key U.S. jobless data and comments from the head of the Federal Reserve.
After a summer lull in much of Europe, the infection rate has begun to rise sharply, with a number of countries including Britain introducing tougher rules to help limit the spread of the virus.
Fears that a market rebound in recent months had gone too far held stocks back, although positive German and French business sentiment data helped pare European losses slightly as did U.S. stock futures pointing to a flat open.
The MSCI World .MIWD00000PUS> index was down 0.5% at 1018 GMT, its fifth day in the red out of the last six and hovering near a two-month low. A broad gauge of Europe’s top shares, the STOXX Europe 600 .STOXX>, was down 0.4%.
S&P 500 futures were flat nearing midday, holding steady after falls in the prior session after economic warnings from U.S. Federal Reserve officials.
That had, in turn, helped tee up weakness overnight in Asia with Asia Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS> down 1.99% to chalk up their worst day in two months.
“Optimism on the recovery, optimism on the virus, and bets on stimulus were keeping markets well bid, and on all three of these issues, there has been a degree of disappointment this month,” said John Velis, an FX and macro strategist at BNY Mellon.
High-grade euro zone government bond yields fell across the board on an expectation that stimulus measures would be maintained, with the German 10-year down 2.2 basis points. The U.S. 10-year was dowm 0.5 basis points.
Despite markets betting on more U.S. fiscal stimulus, political stalemate in Washington continues to frustrate efforts to prop up the world’s biggest economy, beset by one of the worst COVID-19 death rates globally.
“A U.S. fiscal deal was baked into markets and now what you are seeing is that the probability of a deal going through has simply reversed,” said Justin Onuekwusi, a London-based portfolio manager at Legal and General Investment Management.
“We have heard this week how important a fiscal deal is to the Federal Reserve but from a political standpoint, focus has moved more towards the election and Supreme Court deliberations rather than the economy,” he added.
Flows into the dollar =USD> helped it rise for a fourth straight day. Although gains had been pared slightly from the open, it remains on track to record its longest streak of daily gains since June.
The slight perk-up in sentiment helped Brent crude futures recover early losses to trade flat at $41.80 a barrel although gold remained lower, down 0.6% and on course for a fourth day of losses that total nearly 7%.
The euro was flat at $1.1658.
With central bankers in focus globally, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will be closely watched later in the day when he testifies before the Senate Banking Committee, while other Fed officials are scheduled to speak at other events during the day.
Investors are also waiting for weekly data due later on Thursday, which is expected to show U.S. jobless claims fell slightly but remained elevated, indicating the world’s largest economy is far from recovering.
A similar picture was visible in Europe, where the European Central Bank’s latest Economic Bulletin said unemployment would continue to rise in the euro zone, with little growth in demand seen for consumer goods.
Elsewhere among regional ratesetters, the Swiss National Bank maintained its easy monetary policy, but turned less gloomy on the impact of the pandemic. In Britain, meanwhile, the finance minister launched a new jobs support scheme.
In emerging markets, Turkey surprised markets with a hike in its policy rate by 200 basis points to 10.25%, sending the lira and bonds higher. Mexico is also set to decide on monetary policy later on Thursday.
MSCI’s Emerging Markets Index .MSCIEF> was down 1.8%.
(Graphic: COVID-19 new daily cases – https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/gjnvwjjbbpw/Pasted%20image%201600941249476.png)
(Additional reporting by Imani Moise in New York, Marc Jones, Saikat Chatterjee and Sujata Rao in London; Editing by John Stonestreet, Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama)
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
