Stocks, gold gain as investors stay cheery on rate outlook
By Amanda Cooper
LONDON (Reuters) -Global equities rose on Wednesday after U.S. employment data reinforced investors' convictions that rates may soon start to fall, which has pushed down bond yields and lifted gold in the past few trading days.
The flow of trade across the markets was relatively calm, with measures of volatility steady around their recent lows, as investors waiting for a read of U.S. private sector job growth later in the day.
A separate look at job openings on Tuesday showed a bit more softness than expected but not so much as to point to a steeper slowdown in employment, while activity in the U.S. services sector held up last month.
U.S. Treasury yields held roughly around their lowest in three months, while futures markets show traders are placing a two-in-three chance of a rate cut by March, which in turn gave gold another boost and underpinned stocks.
The MSCI All-World was up 0.2%, while in Europe, the STOXX 600 rose 0.2%. German's DAX, which contains a number of tech and industrial heavyweights, hit record highs.
Next up on the data front is the ADP survey of U.S. private sector employment, which is forecast to show a rise of 130,000 in November, according to a Reuters poll.
«We are starting see increasing evidence that the U.S. jobs market is starting to slow, with vacancies falling to their lowest level since March 2021 and with the last two ADP reports adding a combined 202k new jobs as private sector hiring slows,» CMC Markets (LON:CMCX) chief market strategist Michael Hewson said.
«October saw 113,000 jobs added — an improvement on September — and November is expected to see an improvement on that to 130,000, given that a lot of additional hiring takes place in the weeks leading up to
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