News reports on Friday that US officials were making progress during their week of negotiations with Chinese counterparts and the vote by UK MP’s to delay exit from the EU on Friday helped to push Global stocks.
Across Europe, stock markets climbed
The UK’s benchmark FTSE 100 index was boosted following the vote in Parliament of not leaving the EU without a deal on March 29 deadline and the pan-European STOXX 600 index rose to its highest since October.
Strategists at BNP Paribas said that they view the outcome of this week’s votes as positive for UK assets. They still expect a bumpy path ahead even though the path ahead looks positive, the pound sterling rose 2 percent this week. It was flat in trading on Friday at $1.3247.
Stocks on Wall Street is expected to open higher after gains on the S&P 500 futures.
The UK Brexit saga continued on Thursday with MP’s voting in the House of Commons against a no deal Brexit and voted on a three-month delay (an extension to the 29th March deadline).
That’s not all…
The week-long meeting between US officials and their Chinese counterparts on the trade deal made progress according to US official, but there remain sticking points. The meetings will continue this coming week as they try to end the trade war with President Trump saying that he would extend the deadline back if the deal is edging closer.
Mr. Mnunchin said that he did not expect the deal to happen by the end of March, as more work was needed.
Asset manager at Brooks MacDonald, deputy chief investment officer, Edward Park said that there is still a lot of moving parts referring to Brexit and regarding the trade talks the markets reacted purely to the rhetoric and no action.
Asian markets
MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of Japan climbed half a percent.
MSCI All-country World Index gained 0.3 percent, the best since January.
The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 1 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.8 percent.
South Korea’s KOSPI gained almost 1 percent.
Currencies
The dollar index fell to 96.670 slipping 0.1 percent and was flat at 111.70 yen.
The euro gained at $1.1315, up 0.1 percent.
Commodities
Brent was at $66.60 per barrel, down nearly 1 percent.
US crude oil fell to $58.3 per barrel, shedding almost half a percent.
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