Stock market today: World shares are mixed following slight gains on Wall Street

By ELAINE KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — European shares opened lower Thursday after strong advances in Asia led by rallies in Chinese markets.

U.S. futures were mixed and oil prices fell.

Germany’s DAX lost 0.1% to 16,729.35 and the CAC 40 in Paris also edged 0.1% lower, to 7,563.03. Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 2 points at 7,722.88.

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

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index was an outlier in Asia, shedding 0.4% to 33,539.62. Speculation over whether and when the Bank of Japan might ease its longstanding lax monetary policy and raise its key interest rate from minus 0.1% has kept stocks wobbling in the world’s third-largest economy.

BOJ policymakers are waiting to see what sort of wage gains might come in 2024 as part of the central bank’s strategy of keeping credit easy to try to spur stronger growth.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index surged 2.5% to 17,043.53 on heavy buying of technology and property shares. With Thursday’s gains, it is down about 8% for the year as China’s economy has sputtered despite the country’s reopening after it loosened COVID-19 precautions.

Online food delivery company Meituan was up 5.2% and property developer Sino-Ocean Group Holding advanced 4.7%. Shares in struggling developer Country Garden Holdings jumped 6.9%.

Ecommerce giant Alibaba’s shares gained 2.8% even after a court in New York refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it by a U.S. company, Kelly Toys Holdings, for allegedly selling counterfeit versions of Squishmallow plush toys.

The Shanghai Composite index surged 1.4% to 2,954.70.

South Korea’s Kospi advanced 1.6% to 2,655.28 and the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia rose 0.7% to 7,614.30.

India’s Sensex gained 0.4% and Bangkok’s SET also was up 0.4%.

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.1%. It is up 24% for the year. The Dow climbed 0.3%, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%. It has outpaced other major indexes with a gain of 44% this year.

Trading was subdued with two trading days left in the year. The S&P 500 is coming of its eight straight winning week and is hovering just below its all-time high set in January of 2022.

The New York Times rose 2.8% after filing a federal lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement, seeking to end the practice of using its stories without permission to train chatbots.

The final week of 2023 lacks any big U.S. economic updates. Overall, investors have been encouraged by reports showing inflation is on the decline even as the economy appears stronger than expected. The Fed is walking a tightrope, seeking to slow the economy enough through high interest rates to cool inflation, but not so much that it tips the nation into recession.

Recent data have raised hopes that the economy will likely avoid a recession, or at least avoid a significant one. They have also encouraged Wall Street to bet that the Fed is done raising interest rates and will likely shift to rate cuts in the new year. The central bank has held rates steady since its meeting in July, and Wall Street expects it to start cutting rates as early as March.

In other trading Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 66 cents to $73.45 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It declined by $1.46 on Wednesday.

Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 59 cents to $78.95 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 140.93 Japanese yen from 141.84 yen. Expectations for a change to the BOJ’s stance have given the yen renewed strength, while hopes for an easing to U.S. interest rates have weakened the dollar, which is trading at its lowest level against the yen since July.

The euro rose to $1.1117 from $1.1106.