Global Stocks Higher After US, Chinese Presidents Meet

BEIJING (AP) -- Global stocks gained Tuesday after Wall Street gave back some of last week's huge gains, the American and Chinese presidents met and China's consumer spending shrank in a sign its economy is weakening.

Frankfurt, Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong advanced, London was little changed while oil prices declined.

Wall Street futures were higher, suggesting the prices might rebound from Monday's 0.9% loss for the benchmark S&P 500 index. That market gave up part of last week's 5.9% surge after lower U.S. inflation encouraged hopes the Federal Reserve might ease off planned rate hikes.

"Equity markets are looking slightly positive," said Craig Erlam of Oanda in a report. The rally of the past few weeks is "perhaps slowing a little," he said, but "there doesn't appear to be much appetite at this stage to bail on it."

Also Monday, Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met during a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Indonesia. That fed hopes for an easing of U.S.-Chinese tension over security, trade, technology and human rights.

The meeting was "surprisingly positive," Robert Carnell and Nicholas Mapa of ING said in a report.

In early trading, the FTSE in London shed less than 0.1% to 7,380.66. Frankfurt's DAX gained less than 0.1% to 14,326.36 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.3% to 6,628.70.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 future was up 0.7% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5%.

On Monday, the Dow lost 0.6% and the Nasdaq composite fell 1.1%.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.6% to 3,134.07 after Chinese consumer spending contracted by 0.5% in October compared with a year ago under pressure from anti-virus controls. Growth in factory activity also weakened.

The performance was worse than expected by forecasters who say Chinese economic activity will cool as interest rate hikes by global central banks depress demand for exports.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 4.1% to 18,343.12 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 0.1% to 27,990.17.

Seoul's Kospi was up 0.2% at 2,480.33 while Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 shed less than 0.1% to 7,141.60.

India's Sensex opened lost less than 0.1% to 61,559.08. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets advanced.

Investors worry this year's repeated interest rate increases by central banks to cool inflation that is near multi-decade highs might tip the global economy into recession.

Traders expected the Fed to raise its benchmark lending rate again at its December but by a smaller margin of one-half percentage point after four hikes of 0.75 percentage points. Fed officials say rates might have to stay elevated for an extended time to cool prices.

The government is due to report U.S. wholesale inflation on Tuesday. Economists say it likely slowed to 8.3% from September's 8.5%.

On Wednesday, the U.S. government gives an update on retail spending. Economists say growth likely revived to 0.9% in October from the previous month's flat performance.

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude lost 76 cents to $85.11 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $3.09 to $85.87 on Monday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, shed 53 cents to $92.61 per barrel in London. It fell $2.85 the previous session to $93.14.

The dollar edged down to 139.72 yen from Monday's 139.92 yen. The euro gained to $1.0404 from $1.0353.