por admin » Jue Mar 09, 2017 8:47 am
Europa mantiene su política monetaria.
Las acecines caen por la baja en commodities.
Stocks Fall Amid Weak Commodities
The European Central Bank leaves its massive stimulus program unchanged
By Riva Gold and Kenan Machado Updated March 9, 2017 8:25 a.m. ET
Falling commodity prices pressured global stocks Thursday while investors looked ahead to the European Central Bank’s March press conference.
Steep falls in oil and metals prices weighed on shares of mining and energy companies, sending the Stoxx Europe 600 down 0.3% in afternoon trading. Markets in Asia mostly closed lower, while futures pointed to a 0.2% opening loss for the S&P 500, on track for a fourth straight session of declines.
Brent crude oil was last down 2% at $52.04 a barrel, building on a 5% drop in the previous session—its largest one-day fall in more than a year. U.S. oil inventories are now at the highest level since weekly stockpile data started being recorded in 1982, raising doubts over whether cuts from OPEC will be enough to reduce a global glut of supply.
Shares of Transocean Ltd. fell 2.2% in U.S. premarket trading, while Royal Dutch Shell PLC fell 3.5% and BP PLC fell 2.4% in London.
Mining companies also struggled with metals prices including, zinc, nickel, copper and gold all cobbled by a continued firming of the dollar.
Investors were also parsing an update from the European Central Bank, which left its key rates unchanged as expected Thursday and kept borrowing costs at record low levels.
Investors world-wide are waiting to see if the Federal Reserve raises rates next week.
Investors world-wide are waiting to see if the Federal Reserve raises rates next week. Photo: kevin lamarque/Reuters
The euro was last up 0.1% at $1.0553—roughly where it traded for most of the day—ahead of a press conference with ECB President Mario Draghi later Thursday.
Monetary policy has remained ultra-accommodative in Europe and Japan, helping underpin the resilience of stock markets to a rising rate environment in the U.S., according to Fahad Kamal, strategist at Kleinwort Hambros, the U.K. arm of Société Générale Private Banking.
Even with expectations for higher U.S. interest rates nudging Treasury yields higher, massive bond-purchase programs by global banks continue to anchor yields at historically low levels, making stocks look attractive in comparison.
”People have to earn income from investment assets, and that just doesn't exist in bonds and cash, it only exists in equities” right now, Mr. Kamal said.
The ECB only recently expanded its program of quantitative easing by a half-trillion euros. But inflation in the eurozone has suddenly jumped to 2%, slightly above the ECB’s target, after hovering around zero for years, prompting calls from some to wind down its stimulus.
“The eurozone recovery continues, and it’s more assured now than it was three months ago,” said David Owen, chief European Economist at Jefferies.
German 10-year yields were little changed after the ECB said it would keep its policy on hold, and last yielded 0.371% from 0.374% Wednesday. Yields move inversely to prices.
10-year U.S. Treasury yields rose to 2.561% Thursday from 2.552% Wednesday, their highest settlement this year. A stronger-than-expected U.S. employment reading on Wednesday continued to lift the U.S. dollar and lean on commodities and sovereign-debt prices, as expectations grew for a U.S. interest-rate rise next week.
The WSJ Dollar Index was last up less than 0.1%, on track for a fourth session of gains.
Earlier, energy and mining shares fell across Asia, tracking declines in their U.S. peers.
Stocks in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taiwan also moved lower following data on consumer inflation in China. The Shanghai Composite fell 0.7%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was off 1.2% and Taiwan’s Taiex shed 1%.
China’s consumer-price index inched up 0.8% in February from a year earlier, compared with a 2.5% gain in January. China’s producer-price index rose 7.8% last month from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said, the highest since September 2008. Economic data during the first two months of the year tend to be volatile, however, because the timing of China’s largest holiday shifts from year to year.
Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.3% as a weaker yen helped boost export-reliant stocks and higher bond yields supported the financial sector.
— Yifan Xie and Biman Mukherji contributed to this article.