Stock market today: World shares mixed ahead of eventful week; China Evergrande to be liquidated

By ZIMO ZHONG
Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) — World shares were mixed Monday as investors braced for an eventful week, including a decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rates.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce its monetary policy on Wednesday, with traders not anticipating a rate cut. The Bank of England will follow with its rate decision on Thursday.

Monday kicked off with a Hong Kong court’s decision to order China Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, to be liquidated. Chinese markets were mixed after the ruling, with Hong Kong shares rising while benchmarks in Shanghai and Shenzhen sank.

In early European trading, France’s CAC 40 was nearly unchanged at 7,632.50, while Germany’s DAX shed 0.5% to 16,875.72. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.2% to 7,646.57.

The future for the S&P 500 added 0.1% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was virtually unchanged.

Beginning Monday, China’s securities regulators suspended lending of specific shares for short selling, a move to support the country’s declining stock markets. The specific shares refer to Restricted Stock, which is typically allocated to employees or certain strategic investors subject to sales restrictions.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 0.8% to 16,077.24, while the Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.9% to 2,883.36. The Shenzhen Component index, in China’s smaller main market, slipped more than 2% to 8,581.76.

China Evergrande Group will be liquidated after the Hong Kong High Court approved a creditor’s petition on Monday rejecting the heavily indebted developer’s appeal for more time to work out a resolution for its offshore debts. Evergrande has more than $300 billion in liabilities.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index climbed 0.8% to 36,026.94. In South Korea, the Kospi jumped 0.9% to 2,500.65.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.3% higher at 7,576.20. In Bangkok, the SET rose 0.8%.

On Wednesday, the Fed’s policymakers could signal that they’re close to cutting rates by adjusting the language in the statement they issue after each meeting. In December, their statement still suggested officials were willing to consider more rate increases. Removing or altering that language might signal a new approach, focused on rate cuts.

The Fed has hiked its main interest rate to the highest level since 2001, trying to slow the economy and hurt investment prices enough through higher interest rates to get inflation fully under control.

On Friday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2%. Weakness in tech stocks dragged the Nasdaq composite to a 0.4% loss.

A report Friday showed the measure of inflation the Fed prefers to use behaved just about exactly as expected in December. Overall inflation by that measure was 2.6% during the month, matching November’s rate.

Treasury yields yo-yoed in the bond market following the report but later rose modestly. On Monday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.10% from 4.12% late Friday.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude gave up 35 cents to $77.66 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, declined 37 cents to $82.58 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar slipped to 147.71 Japanese yen from 148.11 yen. The euro cost $1.0825, down from $1.0846.