Stocks Set for Best Month Since 2020

Inflation in the region climbed to another all-time high, supporting calls for the European Central Bank to follow up its first interest-rate hike since 2011 with another big move.

Global shares are set for a second weekly advance, paring this year’s rout. The risk is that the recent bout of optimism eventually gets a reality check if inflation stays stubbornly elevated, leaving interest rates higher than investors would like amid an economic downturn.

“At some point, the Fed will pivot policy and that should be better for risk markets, but in the meantime, they’re so bent on quelling inflation that we prefer not to buy the dip here,” Thomas Taw, head of APAC iShares Investment Strategy at BlackRock Inc., said on Bloomberg Radio.

Elsewhere, a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping underlined bilateral tension even as the leaders sought an in-person meeting.

Some of the main moves in markets:

Futures on the S&P 500 rose 0.7% as of 7:15 a.m. New York time
Futures on the Nasdaq 100 rose 1%
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2%
The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.8%
The MSCI World index rose 1.2%

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