TOKYO (AP) โ Global stocks mostly rose Thursday as investors awaited the release of U.S. consumer price data and kept a cautious eye on the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
France's CAC 40 added 0.4% in early trading to 7,161.62. Germany's DAX rose 0.5% to 15,541.01, while Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.7% to 7,672.18. Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 futures rose 0.2%.
Markets have been struggling since the summer, as long-term yields soar in the U.S. bond market, weighing on prices of all types of investments. There has been some relief this week and yields have fallen after Federal Reserve officials suggested they may have finished raising their main overnight interest rate.
A report on U.S. consumer prices is due out on Thursday, a day after a report on wholesale inflation came in stronger than expected. Economists said that might not be enough to force the Federal Reserve to raise its main interest rate again.
Forecasts suggest consumer inflation eased again last month, although the decline may have slowed since the summer, a reminder that the huge price pressures of the past two years will take longer to cool.
Minutes from last month's Federal Reserve meeting suggested that officials view the outlook for the U.S. economy as particularly uncertain. They said they were willing to โproceed carefullyโ in deciding what to do next with the tariffs.
"Recent comments from FOMC members have become more dovish, suggesting the Fed could maintain current short-term rates," Anderson Alves of ActivTrades said in a report, referring to the US Federal Reserve's action. on interest rates.
Tensions in the Middle East are also in the spotlight, he said. As airstrikes devastated Gaza, Israel said it was preparing for a possible ground attack.
In Asian trading, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 1.8% to finish at 32,494.66. Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 rose less than 0.1% to 7,091.00. South Korea's Kospi added 1.2% to 2,479.82. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.9% to 18,238.21, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.9% to 3,107.90.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.4% and the Dow industrials added 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7%.
Oil prices have lost much of their strong gains from earlier this week, sparked by the fighting in Gaza. Although the area does not produce much oil, the concern is that the violence could spill over into the politics around the crude oil market and affect the flow of oil.
On Thursday, benchmark U.S. crude rose 72 cents to $84.21 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Wednesday it fell $2.48 to settle at $83.49. Brent crude, the international standard, added 95 cents to $86.77 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 149.10 Japanese yen from 149.07 yen. The euro was at $1.0627, little changed from $1.0626.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X, formerly Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
