BEIJING—Global stock markets were mixed Wednesday after Wall Street rose on strong corporate profit reports.
Paris, Frankfurt, and Tokyo advanced, while London, Hong Kong, and Shanghai declined. The yen stayed near a two-decade low near 149 to the dollar. Oil prices rebounded.
The future for Wall Street’s S&P 500 index rose 0.3 percent after the market benchmark gained 1.1 percent on Tuesday following strong results from investment bank Goldman Sachs, military contractor Lockheed Martin, and others. The future for the Dow industrials gained 0.2 percent.
On Tuesday, the Dow rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq composite advanced 0.9 percent.
Despite the strong headline numbers, “underlying details were rather mixed” and results from banks showed “the impact of economic activity slowdown,” Tan Boon Heng of Mizuho Bank said in a report.
The profit reports temporarily offset investor worries that repeated interest rate hikes by U.S., European, and Asian central banks to control inflation that is at multi-decade highs might tip the global economy into recession.
That concern has helped to drag U.S. stocks into a bear market, or a decline of more than 20 percent by the S&P 500 from its January high.
In early trading, the FTSE in London edged 0.1 percent lower to 6,828.30 after British inflation surged to a 40-year high of 10.1 percent in September. That increases the likelihood the Bank of England will raise interest rates further and faster.
The DAX in Frankfurt edged less than 0.1 percent higher, to 12,774.20, while the CAC 40 in Paris climbed 0.4 percent to 6,091.57.
In Asian trading, the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.2 percent to 3,044.38 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 0.4 percent to 27,257.38. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong shed 2.4 percent to 16,511.28.
The Kospi in Seoul declined 0.6 percent to 2,237.44 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 advanced 0.3 percent to 6,800.10.
India’s Sensex added 0.2 percent to 59,093.99. New Zealand and Jakarta advanced while Singapore and Bangkok declined.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude gained 84 cents to $82.91 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, picked up 62 cents to $90.65 per barrel in London.
The dollar rose to 149.46 yen from Tuesday’s 149.21 yen. The euro declined to 98.14 cents from 98.50 cents.
By Joe McDonald
