On Monday, global stocks inched higher as investors looked ahead to Chinese and U.S. economic data.
Last week saw stock markets take a wild ride, driven by a decline in Japan, after the unwinding of a popular Japanese yen trading strategy and weak U.S. jobs numbers.
Some better-than-expected U.S. data helped in easing fears of a slowdown globally and stocks recovered nearly all their losses by Friday.
MSCI’s index of global stocks rose 0.25%. On Wall Street, the dow jones Industrial Average was little changed, the NASDAQ Composite Index climbed 0.7%, and the S&P 500 rose 0.36%.
A senior macro strategist at TD Securities, Robert Both, said they had been winding down risk during the recent global market move. Their preferred positioning was dovish with moderate risk allocated.
The STOXX 600 pan-European index was 0.15% higher, the DAX index in Germany was flat and the FTSE 100 in Britain was up 0.59%.
Investors will be focused on Wednesday’s U.S. consumer price index data for July, which will likely show month-on-month inflation inched up to 0.2% after a June reading of minus 0.1%. Retail sales data will be released on Thursday.
A senior macro strategist at State Street, Timothy Graf, said this was a benign expectation and inflation was no longer the problem it once was.
