Markets mixed as UK Parliament rejects no-deal Brexit

Markets were mixed on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.7 percent and the STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.6 percent. However, the Nikkei 225 fell 1.0 percent.

As expected, the UK Parliament on Wednesday voted against a no-deal, hard Brexit. It will vote today on whether to request an extension to the March 29 deadline to reach a trade agreement with the European Union.

In the US, durable goods orders showed an increase in January, leading Michael Pearce, senior US economist at Capital Economics, to suggest that the “slowdown won’t be as sharp as signaled by some of the incoming survey evidence”.