China smartphone shipments slumped in June on inventory overhang: Jefferies
* World stocks index climbs to within 2 points of record
* European bourses, Wall Street futures grind 0.15% higher
* Chinese shares fall on weak industrial profits
* Bonds buoyed by tepid U.S. consumer confidence, Fed hints
* Safe-haven gold heads for worst month in almost 3 years
* World FX rates in 2019 http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh
* Asian stock markets: https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4
By Marc Jones
LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - World shares made another push
for an elusive record high on Wednesday after U.S. President
Donald Trump said Washington and Beijing were in the final
throes of inking an initial trade deal.
Early European trading was relatively subdued, with MSCI's
all-country world index now within 0.4% of its record high from
January 2018 but lacking any real urgency.
London, Frankfurt and Paris were all inching higher, .EU
Shanghai struggled after industrial company profits shrank while
Australian shares had hit record highs and Japanese stocks drew
support from the growing chance of extra fiscal stimulus.
A senior Japanese ruling party official said on Wednesday he
believed the government was striving to compile a supportive
spending package worth about 10 trillion yen ($92 billion).
"Something will come out of the phase one (Sino-U.S. trade)
talks," said TD Securities Senior Global Strategist James
Rossiter. "Rolling back tariffs to where they were in August
with the December ones put on hold or cancelled maybe."
But he said the two countries were unlikely to go beyond
that and China's industrial profits data overnight underscored
the economic strain. In the currency markets, the dollar was broadly stronger
against developed and emerging currencies, with dollar/yen
holding above 109 and euro/dollar steady. FRX/
That was despite softer-than-expected U.S. economic data on
Tuesday which showed a fourth straight monthly contraction in
consumer confidence and an unexpected drop in new home sales in
October.
Sterling GBP= continued to edge lower as pre-election
opinion polls showed some narrowing of Prime Minister Boris
Johnson's Conservatives lead over opposition parties, even
though he remains favourite to gain an overall majority.
The reaction to the poll narrowing has been modest as the
prospect of another hung parliament raises the prospect of some
form of coalition government made up of parties supporting a
second Brexit referendum.
Kay Van-Petersen, global macro strategist at Saxo Capital
Markets in Singapore, said while Sino-U.S. trade headlines may
be driving some tactical, near-term moves in the market, they
were mostly just "noise".
The broader market direction is "about the accommodative Fed
and accommodative monetary policy and the fact that structurally
the meta-trend is still lower in yields and rates," he said.
Some analysts said a renewed fall in U.S. and European bond
yields on Tuesday also pointed to more mechanical explanations
beyond trade for rising equity prices.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Monday that
monetary policy was "well positioned" to support the strong U.S.
labour market. In emerging markets, traders were keeping a close eye on
Brazil's real, which hit a record low below the troughs hit
during the deep recession of 2015 and despite ongoing central
bank intervention.
Among the main commodities, oil prices edged lower after
hitting their highest since late September on the reassuring
trade headlines. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 was
down 0.21% at $58.29 per barrel. Global benchmark Brent crude
LCOc1 lost 0.11% to $64.20 per barrel.
Traditional safe-haven gold changed hands at $1,458.33 per
ounce on the spot market XAU= , down 0.2% on the day but also
heading for its worst month in almost three years after a 3.5%
drop. GOL/