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Global stocks retreated on Thursday, as a surge in China markets on the back of revived investor confidence helped offset a more muted performance elsewhere, while the euro held steady against the dollar ahead of a European Central Bank meeting.
Chinese blue-chips staged a robust rally, with the Shanghai Composite up 3 per cent in its largest daily gain in nearly two years, after a series of measures by Beijing authorities to prop up the economy and the stock market.
The gain, however, was not enough to keep the MSCI All-World index in positive territory, given weakness in European equities and flat US stock index futures.
The upcoming monetary policy decision by the European Central Bank kept pressure on bond prices and gave the euro a leg-up against the dollar, while keeping a lid on volatility in the stock market.
Earnings from Nokia which beat expectations, pushed shares in the Finnish telecoms equipment maker to the top of the STOXX 600, while pressure on financials and healthcare offset that lift, leaving the regional index down 0.3 per cent.
Denting investor sentiment too was a 8 per cent drop in Tesla shares in the premarket following an earnings miss.
Investors expect no change in monetary policy from the ECB and are looking for guidance from central bank President Christine Lagarde for what to expect in terms of potential rate cuts this year.
Lagarde is expected to echo the rhetoric from some of her ECB colleagues, who have pushed back fairly heavily against market-based expectations for aggressive rate cuts.
"The key point here is that markets have been aggressively pricing interest rate cuts. And what we've seen since the start of the year is a bit of a paring back in those expectations," David Katimbo-Mugwanya, who is head of fixed income at EdenTree, said.
"Central banks have been fairly consistent that they will need time to reassess the moving parts especially vis-a-vis inflation heading back to target," he said.
Similarly, investors expect the Federal Reserve to bring US interest rates down to 3.75-4.25 per cent by year-end from 5.25-5.5 per cent right now - a view some see as optimistic given inflation is still not back to 2 per cent and economic growth is holding up.
US 10-year Treasury yields were last flat at 4.17 per cent, while yields on 10-year German government bonds rose 3 basis points to 2.361 per cent, around their highest since early December, ahead of the ECB decision.
In currency markets, the dollar was under pressure against a basket of currencies , after investors took profit on its recent rise, with less than a week to go for the Fed's next meeting. The dollar index was down 0.1 per cent, led mostly by gains in the euro , which rose 0.1 per cent to $1.0889.
The Chinese yuan weakened a touch, falling 0.1 per cent, which gave the local stock market an additional boost.
"Coupled with additional liquidity measures, credit support and impending plans to stabilise financial exposures in real estate, we expect markets to be on board with the 'stabilisation' narrative at least through the Lunar New Year," said BNY Mellon strategist Geoff Yu.
The yen was steady around 147.61, having staged its largest one-day rally against the dollar on Wednesday in a month after hints at rate rises in Japan triggered selling in the Japanese government bond market.
In commodity markets, Brent crude futures rose 1.1 per cent to $80.93 a barrel after evidence of stronger US demand, while China's various stimulus measures reinforced optimism over energy consumption in the world's second-largest economy.