Stock market today: World stocks advance after Wall Street closes out another winning week

HONG KONG (AP) — Global stocks advanced on Monday after U.S. stock indexes approached their records, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 40,000 for the first time.

Oil prices rose as investors focused on the Middle East, where a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other officials crashed on the mountain reaches of northwestern Iran on Sunday.

European markets started the week higher with Britain's FTSE 100 gaining 0.3% to 8,447.28. Germany's DAX added 0.4% to 18,770.02 and Paris' CAC 40 rose 0.4% to 8,197.72.

The S&P 500 future rose 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average future rose less than 0.1%.

Chinese market extended last week's gains after central bank announcement new support for the real estate industry, including reducing down payments required for mortgage loans, reducing mortgage interest rates for first and second home purchases, and eliminating a minimum mortgage rate rate.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.3% to 19,608.30, and its property index rose 0.3%. Country Garden Holdings, one of many financially troubled developers, saw its US-listed shares rise 18.5% on Friday after the policy was announced.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.5% to 3,171.15.

On Monday, China's central bank left the prime rate on one- and five-year loans unchanged at 3.45% and 3.95%, in line with expectations. The one-year LPR serves as a benchmark for most new and outstanding loans in China, while the five-year rate affects the price of real estate mortgages.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 0.7% to 39,069.68. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,863.70. The Kospi in Korea rose 0.6% to 2,742.14.

On the other hand, Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.1% after Lai Ching-te took office as the new president of Taiwan. Lai is expected to defend the island's policy of de facto independence from China and seek to bolster its defenses against Beijing, which claims the island as Chinese territory.

In Bangkok, the SET rose 0.1%.

On Friday, the Dow Jones rose 0.3% to 40,003.59. It and other Wall Street indexes have been rising since the fall of 2022 as the U.S. economy and corporate profits have shown resilience despite high inflation, the punishing effects of high interest rates, and concerns about a recession. that seemed inevitable but has not arrived.

The S&P 500, which is the most important index for Wall Street and most retirement savers, added 0.1%, closing a fourth consecutive week of gains. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.1% to 16,685.97.

A report last week revived hopes that Inflation is finally returning in the right direction after a discouraging start to the year. This, in turn, revived hopes that the Federal Reserve cut its main interest rate at least once this year.

The federal funds rate is at its highest level in more than two decades, and a cut would raise investment prices and remove some of the downward pressure on the economy.

The hope is that the Fed can pull off the balancing act of slowing the economy enough through high interest rates to stamp out high inflation, but not so much that it causes a bad recession.

Of course, with a growing percentage of traders betting that the Federal Reserve will cut rates twice this year, if not more, some economists warn that the optimism may be going too far. It's something that Happens often on Wall Street.

In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.43% from 4.38% late Thursday.

In other trading on Monday, benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 2 cents to $79.60 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added 24 cents to $84.22 a barrel.

The US dollar rose to 155.76 Japanese yen from 155.55 yen. The euro rose to $1.0874 from $1.0871.

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