European shares hold firm as Asian stocks fall and the dollar rises
Wall Street and Asian shares drops, with Chinese mainland stocks tumbling, but the US refrains from calling China a currency manipulator
London — The dollar rose to a one-week high on Thursday and stocks edged lower after signs that the US Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates throughout 2019 undermined a bounce in world markets. China’s stock markets were hit hard — its benchmark stock index fell to four-year lows — in a gloomy session for Asian equities and for the yuan which approached a two-month low. China’s premier warned of risks to the economy from an escalating tariff war with the US. European shares, however, largely shrugged off the disappointment in Asia. London’s FTSE 100 traded 0.1% higher and Frankfurt’s DAX 30 and Paris’s CAC 40 both rose 0.3%. A pan-European equity index rose 0.4%. Minutes of the Fed’s September 25-26 meeting showed that every Fed policymaker backed raising interest rates last month and also generally agreed borrowing costs were set to rise further. This reinforces expectations that US yields will rise further despite US President Donald Trump’s view that the Fed is tighte...
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