Morning Briefing: China may not be booming but try telling that to its consumers

China may not be booming but try telling that to its consumers... Four charged over financial hacking... UBS chair says easing won’t help weakened economies...

Steve Randall
China may not be booming but try telling that to its consumers
World markets are higher so far Wednesday with optimism boosted by data in China which showed an expected 10 per cent rise in fixed-asset investment. Meanwhile the country’s shoppers have been online spending in record numbers as their cyber sales event “Singles Day” saw $1 billion spent in just 8 minutes.

The world’s biggest shopping day, which overshadows Black Friday and Cyber Monday, exceeded last year’s $9.3 billion of spending through Alibaba’s Alipay service by lunchtime.

Asian markets closed higher with only Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lower.

European markets are also largely higher on the Chinese investment data and ahead of a speech by ECB president Mario Draghi.
Toronto and Wall Street are expected to open higher after mixed sessions Tuesday. The S&P 500 rose for the first time in five sessions but the Nasdaq and Canada’s TSX were both lower.
 
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North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones 17,758.21 (+0.16 per cent) +3.94 per cent +0.81 per cent
TSX Composite 13,411.63 (-0.53 per cent) -3.96 per cent -9.14 per cent
 
Europe (at 6.10am ET)
UK FTSE 6,306.14 (+0.49 per cent) -1.71 per cent - 4.85 per cent
German DAX 10,925.42 (+0.86 per cent) +8.21 per cent +16.61 per cent
 
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300 3,833.65 (+ 0.01 per cent) +14.78 per cent +49.83 per cent
Japan Nikkei 19,691.39 (+0.10 per cent) +6.79 per cent +14.99 per cent
 
Other Data (at 6.15am ET)
Oil (Brent) Oil (WTI) Gold Can. Dollar
47.22
(-0.46 per cent)
43.69
(-1.18 per cent)
1087.90
(-0.06 per cent)
U$0.7536
 
Aus. Dollar
U$0.7052

Four charged over financial hacking
Four indictments were unsealed Tuesday revealing that four people, including a US citizen, have been charged with stealing personal details of 100 million US financial institution customers through hacking. The US courts are seeking extradition of three of the men, who are living in Israel and Moscow.
 
UBS chair says easing won’t help weakened economies
Quantitative easing in Japan and Europe won’t help their economies, neither will lowering interest rates. That’s the opinion of Axel Weber, chair of UBS, who told CNBC that he can’t see the economies driving inflation back to 2 per cent. He also called for the Fed to begin its increase of interest rates, highlighting that improvement in the economy now warrant the move.
 

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