Asia
A positive close on Wall Street on Thursday helped Asian markets to recover further after their midweek slide. After a gain of over 300 points, Japan’s Nikkei move back to the 22,800 levels seen at the start of the week, helped by a further strengthening in the dollar against the yen after the US government averted a shutdown. An upward revision in Japanese GDP also helped the positive case for the country’s economy. A raft of Chinese date was also positively received: both exports and imports were higher than forecast for November on a year on year basis and the country’s trade balance, at $40 billion, was $2 billion higher than in October. China's CSI 300 ended the week at just over 4,000 points.
Europe
News of significant progress in Brexit negotiations failed to give the FTSE 100 much of a push higher, as the index was held back by sterling’s advance against the euro and the dollar.
FTSE 100 housebuilder Berkeley Group (BKG) defied talk of a cooling in the housing market by posting a 36% rise in pre-tax profits in the first half. Its shares rose 9% in morning trading to £42, a new record high. Other listed housebuilders were showing strong gains on Berkeley’s positive update to the market.
Looking ahead, next week is a key one for the UK economy, with inflation numbers due on Tuesday and the Bank of England having its last interest rate-setting meeting of the year.
European indices joined the in the global recovery, with Italy’s FTSE MIB the pick of the exchanges despite the country enjoying a public holiday for the Immaculate Conception – as in Spain and Portugal.
The European Central Bank also meeting next week, amid speculation that recent strong showings for eurozone economies will prompt the ECB to reduce bond purchases by more than expected.
North America
The week in economics ends with one of the highlights for the month in non-farm payrolls data for November. Analysts are forecasting a gain of nearly 200,000 jobs, down around 60,000 from the previous month, although that was affected by a surge in employment after the hurricanes. This is the last jobs number before next Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting, which is widely expected to see a rise in interest rates.
Friday will also see the release of the University of Michigan sentiment survey for December, which is a provisional estimate.
