Thursday 24 October 2013

Stock rally ends amid positive economic data

The two-week rally in global stocks came to an end on Wednesday with the MSCI All-Country World Index falling 0.6 percent. The S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent while the STOXX Europe 600 fell 0.6 percent.

Some of the biggest declines on Wednesday took place in Asia. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index ended down 0.8 percent after having climbed as much as 0.5 percent earlier in the day. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.3 percent after China's seven-day repurchase rate surged 47 basis points to 4.05 percent but Japanese stocks fell even harder, the Nikkei 225 falling 2.0 percent, its biggest loss in three weeks.

Economic data on Wednesday were mostly positive.

House prices in the US eked out further gains in August according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, albeit by just 0.3 percent, the smallest in 11 months.

Housing remains strong in the UK, with approvals for home loans rising nearly 40 percent in September from a year earlier to 42,990, the highest level since December 2009.

Elsewhere in Europe, the European Commission reported that its consumer confidence index for the euro area improved to -14.5 in October from -14.9 in September.

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