SALON

Friday, Dec 14, 2012 9:15 AM UTC

World stocks higher as China factory output grows

By

Topics: From the Wires,

BANGKOK (AP) — World stock markets swung higher Friday after a survey showed an improvement in China’s manufacturing, offsetting gloom from a sharp drop in Japanese business confidence.

European stocks rose on the heels of two crucial agreements reached Thursday by European Union finance ministers: a compromise to create a single supervisor for banks and an agreement to give Greece desperately needed bailout funds.

Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.2 percent to 5,940.86. Germany’s DAX added 0.4 percent to 7,612.93. France’s CAC-40 gained 0.2 percent to 3,651.22.

Wall Street shares headed for a higher opening. Dow Jones industrial futures rose 0.4 percent to 13,143 and S&P 500 futures advanced 0.4 percent to 1,418.40.

Earlier Friday, HSBC Corp. released its preliminary China Purchasing Managers’ Index for December, which rose to a 14-month high of 50.9. That was an improvement from November’s reading of 50.5. Numbers above 50 represent an expansion of manufacturing.

“I think it adds further encouragement that China is moving in the right direction,” said Andrew Sullivan, a self-employed analyst based in Hong Kong. “But we are also seeing a lot of money sitting on the sidelines at the end of the year, and people want to get it invested. In previous years, we’ve seen good rallies around the end of the year.”

The preliminary version of the HSBC index is based on responses from 75 to 80 percent of the 420 companies surveyed each month. The full report is due out at the end of the month.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng pulled out of negative territory to advance 0.7 percent to 22,605.9. Mainland Chinese shares posted sharp gains, with the Shanghai Composite Index surging 4.3 percent to 2,150.63. The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index shot up 4.2 percent to 816.19.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index sank slightly following the release of a Bank of Japan survey which showed large Japanese manufacturers are more pessimistic about business conditions. The “tankan” index for the December quarter dropped from September’s minus three to minus 12, much worse than expected.

The benchmark in Tokyo fell 0.1 percent to close at 9,737.56, a day after closing at an eight-month high. A weakening yen helped export shares, with Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd. surging 6.8 percent and Sharp Corp. jumping 7.6 percent.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.4 percent to 1,995.04. Benchmarks in Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan also fell. Australia’s S&P/ASX was nearly unchanged at 4,583.10.

Wall Street stocks slid Thursday after investors registered their dismay at an apparent lack of progress during budget talks in Washington between President Barack Obama and key Republican lawmakers.

A deal must be reached by the end of the year to avoid what has been dubbed the “fiscal cliff” — hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts and tax increases that could plunge the world’s largest economy back into recession.

Benchmark crude was up 90 cents to $86.79 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost 88 cents to end at $85.89 per barrel in New York on Thursday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3083 from $1.3075 late Thursday in New York. The dollar rose to 83.76 from 83.58 on expectations that Sunday’s parliamentary election will usher in a government committed to a weak currency.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s move earlier this week to stimulate the slow-growing U.S. economy by spending $85 billion a month to help keep interest rates low also has helped weaken the dollar against other currencies.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

More By Pamela Sampson.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
209 points210 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
157 points158 points | comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
84 points85 points | 26 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
49 points50 points | 8 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
23 points24 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations