Tuesday November 29th

U.S. stock index futures rose Tuesday as investors looked to shake off Monday’s slide. The broad index’s futures added 0.3%, while Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.4%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded near flat. The move follows stocks in Hong Kong and Shanghai rallying overnight as a Chinese official told reporters that 65.8% of people “over age 80” had received booster shots. On top of that, the government reported the first decline in Covid infections within mainland China in more than a week. Those updates follow the declines in U.S. and foreign markets seen Monday after protests in mainland China against the country’s zero-Covid policy started over the weekend. All three of the major U.S. indexes ended the day down more than 1% and West Texas Intermediate crude futures briefly fell to their lowest point since last December as investors grew increasingly concerned about if Chinese Covid protocols could hamper global supply chains. “There’s some real reasons to be cautious. The market’s rallied a lot this quarter, and there’s some concerns that things are going to slow, so I think it’s a kind of balanced risk reward,” Trivariate Research’s Adam Parker said Monday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.” “I think there was an excuse with maybe some China slowdown fears for people to collect a little profit that they made in the quarter,” he added. On the economic front, traders will watch for the September reading of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index that is due Tuesday before the bell. The report will give investors insight into how higher interest rates are affecting the housing market. Home prices in the prior month jumped about 13% year over year. Meanwhile, the latest reading on consumer confidence is set to release at 10 a.m. Wall Street is also expecting the latest corporate earnings results from Hewlett Packard Enterprise Tuesday after the bell. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings on Wednesday. Investors will be listening for insight into the central bank’s fight against inflation. Stocks in Hong Kong closed at session highs as Chinese health authorities reported recent uptick in senior vaccination rates, which is regarded by experts as crucial to reopening the economy that has been facing sporadic lockdowns. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index ended its session 5.24% higher to 18,204.68 with the Hang Seng Tech index rising 7.66%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite climbed 2.31% to 3,149.75 and the Shenzhen Component added 2.4% to 11,089.01. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.33% to close at 7,253.30. South Korea’s Kospi traded around 1% higher. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares added 1.73%. Meanwhile, the Nikkei 225 in Japan fell 0.48% to 28,027.84 and the Topix shed 0.57% to 1,992.97 as retail sales data missed expectations and the nation’s unemployment rate was unchanged from September. Oil jumped on Tuesday, buoyed by hopes that China would relax its Covid-19 controls after rare protests against the country’s zero-Covid strategy over the weekend in big Chinese cities. Brent crude futures advanced $1.4, or 1.7%, and traded at $84.57 a barrel at 0645 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose $1.17, or 1.5%, to $78.39 a barrel. Both benchmarks gained more than $2 earlier in the day. Gold prices climbed Tuesday as a pullback in the dollar outweighed pressure from hawkish remarks by U.S. Federal Reserve officials on interest rate hikes. Spot gold was up 0.8% at $1,754.85 per ounce, while U.S. gold futures gained 0.8% to $1,769.70. Gold prices posted their worst day in a month on Monday, shedding nearly 1%, following hawkish comments from Fed officials James Bullard and John Williams. The dollar index fell 0.4% against its rivals on Tuesday, making gold less expensive for other currency holders.