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Finance

Morning bid: China's shot in the arm for markets

Published by Global Banking and Finance Review

Posted on January 25, 2025

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A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Rae Wee

After drowning for days in headlines about Donald Trump's return to the White House, investors were delivered a bit of a diversion on Thursday with the announcement of new Chinese measures to boost its ailing stock market.

Beijing plans to channel hundreds of billions of yuan per year from state-owned insurers' funds into the stock market, including at least 100 billion yuan ($13.75 billion) in the first half of this year, according to China Securities Regulatory Commission head Wu Qing.

Chinese authorities are urgently trying to shore up their sagging stock markets, where the main benchmarks have fallen 3% so far this month despite a rise in major share markets elsewhere.

China's CSI300 blue-chip index and the Shanghai Composite Index jumped more than 1% after the news, as did the Hang Seng Index, although they have since relinquished some of those gains.

The news from China offered little support to MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, which retreated on Thursday after seven straight sessions of gains.

European shares also looked set for a negative open along with their U.S. counterparts, suggesting that enthusiasm over Trump's mammoth spending plans for artificial intelligence infrastructure may be ebbing after lifting shares on Wednesday.

Trump offered little detail on how the $500 billion private-sector investment would be funded, although The Information reported that OpenAI and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank would each commit $19 billion to the project.

The data calendar is light in Europe on Thursday. A rate decision is due from Norges Bank, which is widely expected to keep rates on hold.

The Bank of Japan kicked off its two-day policy meeting on Thursday and markets have about fully priced in a 25-basis-point rate hike after hints last week by BOJ policymakers.

It would likely take both the expected rate hike and an explicit promise of more hikes ahead to stop a renewed fall in the yen, which on Thursday continued to drift away from a one-month high hit early in the week.

Key developments that could influence markets on Thursday:

- Norges Bank rate decision

- U.S. weekly jobless claims

- American Airlines, General Electric earnings

(By Rae Wee; Editing by Edmund Klamann)