Europe midday: News of China-US talks buoy markets
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Thursday 16 Aug 2018
(Sharecast News) - Stocks are edging higher on Thursday, buoyed by news that Chinese and US officials will hold talks aimed at resolving their differences on trade and hopefully avoid an escalation in their ongoing spat.
At the invitation of the US, China's vice commerce minister, Wang Shouwen, will travel to Washington in late August and hold contacts with his American counterparts, marking the first official contacts between Beijing and Washington in two months.
As of 1303 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was up by 0.29% or 1.10 points at 380.80, alongside an advance of 0.28% or 33.74 points to 12,198.60 for the German Dax.
Milan's FTSE Mibtel on the other hand was down by 1.56% or 329.29 points to 20,57.56, pushed lower by the sharp rise in the country's 10-year government bond yields during the previous session.
In parallel, the Chinese yuan was making small gains, with the Greenback trading down by 0.58% to 6.8949 against the Asian currency.
The US dollar was holding lower against the Turkish lira too, shedding 1.91% to stand at 5.83, although some analysts were rather skeptical.
"While this is welcome from a contagion point of view and will help mitigate some of the upward pressure from rising prices within Turkey, it should not be taken as a sign that the crisis is over," said Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK.
"[...] The bigger question is whether this is a case of crisis averted or crisis deferred, and the probability is that it is the latter given that Turkey's problems remain unresolved."
The economic calendar in the euro area was light on Thursday, although a spate of high-frequency US data was set for release at 1330 BST.
Nevertheless, and as expected, Norway's central bank kept its main policy interest rate unchanged at 0.5%.
Meanwhile, Eurostat reported that, in seasonally-adjusted terms, the Eurozone's trade surplus shrank to €16.7bn in June from €16.9bn in May (consensus: €16.9bn), amid big increases in both exports and imports versus the prior month.
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