Global Stocks Gain, Led by Improving Factory Activity in China

BEIJING, China – Global shares ended Monday on a more optimistic note as stocks edged higher, pumped by the recent update of improvements on the factory activity in China before the possible Washington-imposed tariff increase on Chinese imports on December 15.

Frankfurt and London started the early trading day with recorded advances on share price while Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai closed Monday trading significantly higher.

Monthly surveys on the manufacturing output on China were published overnight, showing a bit of improvement in its manufacturing activity for November, defying the market expectations of a decline.

The upbeat economic activity of the country helped settle the sentiment of a lot of market players as they continue to wait for any concrete update on the trade negotiations between the US and China ahead of the impending new tariff hike for December 15. After the US bill on Hong Kong has threatened to disrupt the trade negotiations, the uptick on the manufacturing activity in China has triggered investor’s optimism, according to Vishnu Varathan from the Mizuho Bank.

However, he also stated that the market is moving with caution going onward as they wait for what happens as the US imposes tariffs.

On stocks, the FTSE 100 index in London recorded a 0.5% increase towards 7,385.82 points while the DAX index in Germany gained by around 0.6%, going up to 13,315.31. The CAC 40 index of France also tracked a 0.6% gain, bringing it towards 3,940.39 for the day.

On Wall Street, stock futures for both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes recorded a 0.4% increase. It recovered the 0.4% drop on Friday, although it ended the previous week with gains after reaching three all-time highs.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 of Japan added 1% on stock price, going up to 23, 529.50, while the Shanghai Composite index closed Monday with less than 1 point towards 2,872.61. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong also tracked a significant 0.4% increase, bringing its value towards 26,444.72.

The S&P-ASX 200 index in Sydney recorded 0.2% gains to 6,862.30, while the Kospi index of Seoul advanced by 0.2% to 2,091.92, but the Sensex benchmark index of India lost 14 points, going down to 40,777.89 points.

Overall for the Southeast Asian stocks finished with mixed sentiments, and Taiwan and New Zealand also recorded losses.

On currency, the euro slipped from the previous $1.1019 to its current $1.1017 while the dollar gained against the Japanese yen from its 109.48 value last Friday to its current 109.69 yen per dollar.