A strong rally in stocks and favourable movement in government bonds showed no signs of declining, with global indexes posting strong weekly gains. The Dow Jones continued to rally for 5th consecutive week, which was the longest winning streak since the year 2021. S&P 500 climbed to its highest closing level since the month of March 2022 after making a new yearly high Thursday. Talking about the stock market news, Friday’s move was supported by the US Fed Chair’s strongest signal that decision makers are likely done with interest rate increases, saying that the apex bank’s monetary policy is well into restrictive territory.
Even though US Fed’s comments were taken with caution, they reassured investors that the central bank might consider the rate cuts as soon as next year. With this, traders ramped up bets that now the markets should see the rate cuts in March, as per the CME Group data. The Dow Jones went up by ~0.8%, ending above ~36,000 for the 1st time since the month of January 2022. S&P 500 and Nasdaq also grew for the 5th straight week. Benchmark 10-year yield declined to ~4.225%. S&P 500 Index increased by ~0.59% Friday, with Nasdaq 100 Index climbing ~0.31%.
Coming to the stock market news for the Asian peers, Chinese and Hong Kong stocks saw a decline Friday, with the Hang Seng Index seeing worst week in more than 3 months. Performance was impacted as China’s factory activity data exhibited that the economy’s situation is still not up to the mark.
China’s blue-chip, CSI 300 Index, ended ~0.4% lower and the index was down by ~1.6% for the entire week. However, Shanghai Composite Index was somehow flat. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index declined by ~1.3%, and fell ~4.2% for the week. This was categorised as the biggest weekly loss since mid of August 2023.
Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) unexpectedly grew to ~50.7 in November from ~49.5 in October, per data on Friday. This data was in contrast to Thursday’s official PMI, that exhibited a fall to 49.4. Data exhibits that China’s economic recovery is fragile even though several stimulus measures have been announced. Several sectors declined in China, which was led by consumer and healthcare stocks.
Coming to the Indian markets, equity market saw strong gains in the week gone by, with the benchmark Nifty 50 index touching a new record. On Friday, Sensex was up by ~492.75 points, or 0.74%, to end at ~67,481.19, with Nifty50 increasing ~134.75 points to end at ~20,267.90.
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