Beijing, February 6
Global stock markets and Wall Street futures sank Monday after strong US jobs data fanned fears of more interest rate hikes to cool inflation.
London and Frankfurt opened lower. Shanghai, Hong Kong and Sydney fell. Tokyo gained. Oil prices rose.
US employers hired twice as many people in January as the previous month and wages rose, official data showed Friday. That was good news for workers but dampened hopes the Federal Reserve might decide no more rate increases are needed to slow economic activity. The numbers “look set to inevitably burst the bubble on Fed pivot bets” because they “suggest a re-acceleration in wage pressures,” said Tan Boon Heng of Mizuho Bank in a report. In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London lost 0.6 per cent to 7,853.34. The DAX in Frankfurt shed 0.8 per cent to 15,359.20 and the CAC 40 in Paris tumbled 0.9 per cent to 7,171.77. On Wall Street, the future for the benchmark S&P 500 index was down 0.4 per cent. That for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.3 per cent.
On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 1 per cent after the government reported the economy added 5,17,000 jobs in January. — AP
(This story has not been checked by JK Mega and is auto-generated from other sources)