LONDON – Global stocks traded in narrow ranges near recent record highs on Thursday as investors digested a stream of mixed earnings ahead of key central bank meetings.
The MSCI All World Stock Index was little changed at 741 points, barely below its lifetime high of 749.16 points hit last month. In Europe, the STOXX index of 600 companies was also flat at 474 points, some two points below its record high from August.
The impact of bottlenecks on sectors like autos was further highlighted on Thursday by Volkswagen, its shares falling 2.4 percent after the German car giant cut its outlook for deliveries as a shortage of computer chips led to lower-than-expected operating profit in the third quarter.
In Asia, Japan’s robot maker Fanuc tumbled 7.8 percent while IT conglomerate Fujitsu shed 8.4 percent as their earning showed a bigger than expected impact from a global chips shortages.
Brent fell 1 percent to $83.78 per barrel, off Monday’s seven-year high of $86.70. US crude fetched $81.80 per barrel, down 1 percent and off a seven-year high of $85.41 hit on Monday.
The impact of bottlenecks on sectors like autos was further highlighted on Thursday by Volkswagen, its shares falling 2.4 percent after the German car giant cut its outlook for deliveries as a shortage of computer chips led to lower-than-expected operating profit in the third quarter.
In Asia, Japan’s robot maker Fanuc tumbled 7.8 percent while IT conglomerate Fujitsu shed 8.4 percent as their earning showed a bigger than expected impact from a global chips shortages.
Brent fell 1 percent to $83.78 per barrel, off Monday’s seven-year high of $86.70. US crude fetched $81.80 per barrel, down 1 percent and off a seven-year high of $85.41 hit on Monday.
Asia eases on chip worries
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ticked down 0.3 percent amid worries over the impact of chip shortages.
“The working assumption in the market has been that the impact of a chip shortage will fade by the end of year. But if it remains a problem next year, investors will surely feel less confident about the outlook,” said Masayuki Murata, general manager of balanced portfolio investment at Sumitomo Life Insurance.
The Bank of Canada ended its quantitative easing sooner than expected and signalled on Wednesday that it could hike interest rates earlier than previously thought, as soon as April 2022.
Longer-dated yields fell in part because a tighter monetary policy is likely to tame inflation and could derail the economic recovery down the road.
The 10-year US notes yields dropped to 1.559 percent, compared with a five-month peak of 1.705 percent touched a week ago.
“Long-dated yields are falling because of concerns that tighter monetary policies will restrain the economy in the longer run,” said Naokazu Koshimizu, senior rates strategist at Nomura Securities.
The yen showed limited response to the Bank of Japan’s decision to keep its policy on hold and stood at 113.62 per dollar, slightly down.