International Stock Market Starts Week Low

According to the news report by Bloomberg, the stock market in Europe turned lower, stock markets in Asia had a mixed session and American futures showed reduced gains as investors assessed the future of equities after the roller-coaster that markets have been on in the last few weeks.
The dollar gained in value and the price of oil finally broke its 10-day losing streak. The British pound dropped in value even more as the Prime Minister struggled to keep the Brexit plan alive.
With the Asian markets opening first, the main Asian equities measure fell, however, stocks in Hong Kong and Japan were within a tight range. China’s stocks were up.
The European markets opened next and the STOXX Europe 600 Index dropped, its decline led by the real estate sector and the household goods segment. The S&P 500 Futures kept see-sawing up and down and the Nasdaq’s futures went up since the tech drops on Friday which had dragged the tech heavy index down by 1.7%. Futures contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were also down.
The value of the dollar was up against most of its competitors in trading so far today. The price of oil finally went up after 10 days of continuous declines as OPEC and its partners started planning for the implementation of another round of oil cuts in 2019.
The British pound continued its decline, down for the 3rd consecutive day as Prime Minister Theresa May has been under pressure to give up on her Brexit plan.
The Euro also dropped to the weakest it has been in the last 16 months thanks to more stress expected to come in from Italy’s budget. Most of the Europeans bonds were trading higher, but Treasuries were not trading thanks to a US holiday.
Currently, European investors are measuring whether the latest earnings season will be a peak as the focus of the markets move to Brussels, where the European Commission is gearing up to take the battle up with Italy up a notch as the Mediterranean country struggles with its budget deficits. The other focus area this week will be China, which is supposed to publish its key monthly economic data on Wednesday.
Another expectation is that there will be a reignited discussion about the direction of the bond yields as investors are lowering their inflation expectations. The US Consumer prices date is due this week too, which is also help shed light on what borrowing costs will look like in the coming weeks.
Columbia Threadneedle’s global head of asset allocation and head of EMEA multi-assets, Toby Nangle wrote in a note to his clients that with the emerging Asian equities officially in a bear market, and developed markets’ stock down by 10% from their recent peaks, the question that needs answering is whether this downward trend in global markets is “The Big One”. Nangle stated that while that seemed unlikely, the risks on the horizon were enough that they would advise treading carefully at this time.
A quick overview of the international stock markets are as follows:
– The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell by 0.2% in morning trading
– The S&P 500 Futures went up by 1%
– The Italian FTSE MIB Index fell by 0.2% to its lowest level in over a week
– The UK FTSE 100 Index went up by 0.4% in morning trading
– The MSCI All-Country World Index was down by 0.2%
In currencies, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index jumped 0.5%, the Euro went down by 0.6%, the pound lost 1%, and the Japanese Yen fell 0.1%.