Stocks jump as China exports rise but “trends remain sharply lower”

Markets rose on Thursday.

The S&P 500 surged 1.9 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 jumped 1.7 percent and the Nikkei 225 rose 0.4 percent.

Markets were boosted by data from China, which showed that exports for July unexpectedly rose 3.3 percent from the previous year.

Also, fears on the currency front were at least temporarily quelled after the People’s Bank of China set the onshore renminbi reference rate at 7.0039 against one US dollar.

However, Mark Newton, technical analyst at Newton Advisors, said in a Thursday research note that “while the near-term trends in both equities and Treasury yields have begun to stabilize slightly, trends remain sharply lower and it wouldn’t take much to turn both trends back to the downside for a retest of recent lows”.