World Shares Advance Friday
BANGKOK (AP) -- Shares advanced in Europe and Asia on Friday after a wobbly session on Wall Street, as investors awaited a U.S. government jobs report and kept an eye out for developments in China-U.S. trade talks.
Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.5% to 7,171.45, while the CAC 40 in Paris advanced 0.3% to 5,819.55. Germany's DAX picked up 0.1% to 13,065.48. Wall Street looked set for a tepid start, with the future contract for the S&P 500 up 0.1% and the future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 0.2%.
Investors are hoping that the world's two biggest economies will reach a trade deal before new U.S. tariffs go into effect Dec. 15 on some popular products made in China, including smartphones and laptops.
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"Whether or not U.S.-China can cut a deal remains the obsession; arguably the only game in town heading into ahead of the 15-Dec deadline for the next round of tariffs fall due," Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
Chinese officials said Thursday that hinges on whether the U.S. will agree to roll back some of the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump after he began his effort to win trade concessions from Beijing in mid-2018.
"To be sure, there is still no clarity on the deal. But soothing remarks on ?progress' from those involved in the talks appears to have infused some hope and cut tensions," the Mizuho report said.
In Asian trading, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.1% to 26,498.37, while the Nikkei 225 in Japan picked up 0.2% to 23,354.40. South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.0% to 2,081.85, while the Shanghai Composite index added 0.4% to 2,912.01. Australia's S&P ASX 200 gained 0.4% to 6,707.00. Shares fell in India, where the Sensex lost 0.8%.
Investors will be looking for clues into the state of the U.S. economy from the Labor Department's November tally of hiring by nonfarm employers, to be released later Friday. Economists expect the unemployment rate to hold steady at 3.6%.
Stocks fell early in the week after President Donald Trump said he wouldn't mind waiting for a trade deal beyond the 2020 elections. The indexes rebounded Wednesday on a report that Washington and Beijing could be on track for a trade deal before the new tariffs kick in next week.
Benchmark crude oil was unchanged at $58.43 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude oil, the international standard, gained 4 cents to $63.43 a barrel.
The dollar fell to 108.61 Japanese yen from 108.74 yen on Thursday. The euro was steady at $1.1107.
(AG)