Stock market today: Dow in fresh record close as Powell signals rate cut incoming
* China trims short-term interest rate, in surprise move
* World shares index less than 1% from record high
* Wall Street starting week at its own record high
* Markets look to Fed minutes, ECB Lagarde speech
* Pound pushes up as opinion polls favour Tories
* Graphic: World FX rates in 2019 http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh
By Marc Jones
LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - World shares were within touching
distance of a record high on Monday, after Beijing surprised
markets by trimming a key interest rate for the first time since
2015.
In the latest show of support for its economy, China's
central bank cut rates on seven-day reverse repurchase
agreements by five basis points to 2.50% The news helped Asia's main markets get the week off to a
solid start .CSI300 .N225 .HSI . Europe's STOXX 600 and FTSE
.FTSE followed suit with 0.1% to 0.3% gains, though the German
DAX and French CAC40 remained in the red. .EU
MSCI's 49-country main world share index .MIWD00000PUS
inched 0.1% higher, leaving it less than 1% off its early 2018
record high, with Wall Street gains looking likely. .N
"It is a slow start to a slow week, but risk is marginally
on," said Societe Generale strategist Kit Juckes.
He added it was now hard to avoid concluding that China was
slowly easing monetary policy, having held off in recent months,
perhaps wary of drawing fresh criticism from U.S. President
Donald Trump during trade talks.
"Maybe that's what 5 basis points (cut to repo rate) is all
about. It's not rocking the boat, but it's a shift."
The pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX was extending its
six-week winning streak, helped by a bidding war for Spanish
stock exchange BME. The STOXX index is only 8 points short of
its record high of 415.18 points from mid-April.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 gained 0.5% to stop just short of its
recent 13-month top and Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 1.35%
despite ongoing protests there. Shanghai blue chips recouped
early losses to close up 0.8% .CSI300 . .SS .T