U.S. stocks rise as yields hit two-week low; copper falls – Reuters

• Summary
• Companies

• Wall St ends solidly higher with tech, defensives
• Crude oil futures settle lower
• U.S. Treasury yields fall to 2-week low

NEW YORK, June 23 (Reuters) – Stocks in global markets rose on Thursday as U.S. Treasury yields fell to two-week lows, while copper was at 16-month lows as investors worried about a possible global economic slowdown.

The Nasdaq led the way higher on Wall Street, rising more than 1.6%. Technology shares including Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and defensive shares gave the S&P 500 its biggest boost as investors continued to worry about a potential recession. read more

Investors have been weighing the risk of hefty interest rate rises tipping economies into recession.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before Congress for a second day, a day after saying the Fed is committed to cutting inflation at all costs, and acknowledged a recession was “certainly a possibility.” read more

“What we’re seeing here is a (stock) market trying to absorb the Fed’s tightening and basically trying to put in a low in a bear market,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

“We have yields that are coming down, and so that’s helping stocks,” he said. “For now, the market has probably discounted somewhat of a mild recession.”

Gauges of factory activity released on Thursday in Japan, Britain, the euro zone and United States all softened in June, with U.S. producers reporting the first outright drop in new orders in two years. read more

Manufacturing growth is slowing worldwide partly because China’s COVID-19 curbs and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have disrupted supply chains and added to inflation problems.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 194.23 points, or 0.64%, to 30,677.36, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 35.84 points, or 0.95%, to 3,795.73 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 179.11 points, or 1.62%, to 11,232.19.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) lost 0.82% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) gained 0.43%.

In the U.S. bond market, yields fell, partly on a growing belief that yields may have topped for the near term even if inflation stays high.

Yields have dropped from their highest level in more than a decade, reached before last week’s Fed meeting, when the U.S. central bank hiked rates by 75 basis points, the biggest increase since 1994.

Benchmark U.S. 10-year yields fell to 3.005%, before rebounding to 3.070%. They have dropped from 3.498% on June 14, the highest since April 2011.

Copper prices slumped as rising interest rates and weak economic data fed worries about demand.

Copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) hit its lowest level since February 2021.

In the foreign exchange market, the euro slid across the board following the weaker-than-expected German and French PMI data. read more

Against the dollar, the euro declined 0.5% to $1.0509. It earlier declined below a key $1.05 level for the third time this week. The euro also declined 1.4% versus the Japanese currency to 141.85 yen.

Oil prices ended lower as investors weighed the risk of a recession. Brent crude futures fell $1.69 to settle at $110.05 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures dropped $1.92 to settle at $104.27.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York
Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Karen Brettell in New York, and Huw Jones in London
Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/9RmQ56l
via IFTTT