BANGKOK (AP) โ Stocks opened mostly higher Thursday in Europe after mixed closes in Asia and on Wall Street as markets recalibrated after recent big swings.
Germany's DAX rose 0.2% to 15,254.10 and Paris' CAC 40 advanced 0.4% to 7,060.85. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.1% to 7,393.42. On Wall Street, the future of the S&P 500 was little changed and that of the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1%.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.1%, just managing to extend the index's winning streak to eight days. This ties the longest winning streak since a nine-day streak 19 years ago. The Dow Jones fell 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%.
The dearth of new economic data has left markets largely quiet this week.
China reported that its consumer prices fell 0.2% from a year earlier in October, while factory prices fell 2.6%, suggesting demand remains weak as the world's second-largest economy struggling to recover from the economic disruptions of the pandemic.
The drop in prices has raised concerns that China could slide into a bout of deflation, or chronically lower prices, but some analysts say much of the recent weakness is due to a drop in the cost of pork, a basic item for the Chinese.
"What China has now is a low core inflation rate, reflecting the fact that domestic demand is quite weak," Robert Carnell of ING Economics said in a report. "If you want to use any term, 'disinflation' would be my preference, but what we are seeing today is primarily the result of excess supply, rather than a collapse in demand," he said.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.3% to 17,511.29 and the Shanghai Composite Index rose less than 1 point to 3,053.28.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 1.5% to 32,646.46 after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told local journalists that he had decided not to call elections before the end of the year.
South Korea's Kospi added 0.2% to 2,427.08, while in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3% to 7,014.90. In Bangkok, the SET lost 0.5%.
The 10-year Treasury yield was 4.52% early Thursday, down from 4.57% late Tuesday.
Rapid performance increase over 10 years Starting in the summer, it dragged the S&P 500 down more than 10% from its high for the year. The 10-year yield briefly surpassed 5% to reach its highest level since 2007, tracking the Federal Reserve's main interest rate, which is above 5.25% and at its highest level since 2001.
The Federal Reserve has raised rates in hopes of slowing the economy and hurting investment prices enough to put downward pressure on inflation and get it back to its 2% target.
Last week, investors took comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to indicate that interest rate increases can be made by the central bank. A recent sharp drop in oil prices has eased some inflationary pressure, increasing the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will keep rates steady rather than raising them further.
The price of a barrel of US crude oil has fallen from more than $90 to where it was in July, and fell another $2.04 to settle at $75.33 on Wednesday. Brent crude, the international standard, fell $2.07 to $79.54.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil added 76 cents to $76.09 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 84 cents to $80.38 a barrel.
He The last war between Israel and Hamas. has raised concerns about possible supply disruptions, leading to price swings. But now the focus is on faltering demand given slowing growth in many economies, particularly China.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 151.04 Japanese yen from 150.98 yen. The euro weakened to $1.0695 from $1.0711.
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