Major stock markets mostly advanced Monday as investors looked ahead to key interest-rate decisions this week in the United States and elsewhere.
Leading Asian and European indices largely gained following last week鈥檚 volatility caused by mixed earnings and big selling of technology stocks.
The US Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Japan鈥檚 central bank are due this week to update on their monetary policies with US jobs data and more results from multinationals also set to come out.
鈥榃hile no change is expected at the Federal Reserve meeting this week, the odds are now strongly in favour of a cut in September,鈥� noted Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor.
On Thursday, a day after the Fed鈥檚 latest decision, the Bank of England may cut borrowing costs for the first time since the Covid pandemic after a sizeable fall to British inflation this year, analysts said.
They added that the decision is on a knife-edge, similar to what is expected over the Bank of Japan鈥檚 decision.
Expectations for a rise, either this week or at the BoJ鈥檚 next meeting, along with bets on a Fed cut, have helped push the yen higher against the dollar after it hit a four-decade low near at the start of July.
Moody鈥檚 Analytics believes the BoJ will leave rates on hold despite a pickup in Japanese inflation.
Wall Street reopens Monday after its main indices jumped more than one per cent Friday. This followed publication of the Fed鈥檚 preferred gauge of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, that slowed to 2.5 per cent last month.
The reading, which was just above the US central bank鈥檚 two per cent target, was the latest to boost bets on a rate cut in September and pushed up expectations for two more before January.
