Trade overview: current reports, trends, indices, stock prices, bonds, foreign exchange and commodities and analyst recommendations
07:25
Mixed trend in Asian stock markets. The Nikkei index in Tokyo is down 1.6%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 is down about 0.1%.
The South Korean Kospi is up 0.4%. Indonesia is also rising at a similar rate. Shanghai and Singapore register increases of about 0.5%.
In Hong Kong and Taiwan, there is no trading today due to Tombstone Cleaning Day. In Israel, the stock exchange in Tel Aviv is on vacation for Passover.
Trading on the Wall Street stock exchanges closed down yesterday after employment data was published which revealed that the number of jobs fell to the lowest level in two years. The number of jobs opened in February in the US fell below 10 million. The number of jobs for the month of February was 9.93 million.
The president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Loretta Mester, said in a speech she delivered in New York that the central bank will have to raise interest rates further in order to curb inflation.
“Exactly how high the interest rate will have to be raised and for how long the policy will have to remain restrictive, depends on how much inflation and inflation expectations go down,” Mester said.
On Wall Street, the contracts indicate a negative opening after the declines at the close of trading last night. Nasdaq retreated 0.5%, S&P 500 and Dow Jones fell 0.6%.