Wall Street drifted higher following cautious trade across global markets, as investors kept their sights on a string of central bank meetings coming later this week.
Gains in energy and real estate shares helped the S&P 500 climb 0.1 per cent on Monday in New York, with materials and utilities the benchmark’s main laggards.
The technology sector also gave US stocks a boost. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.6 per cent, aided by gains of more than 4 per cent for Tesla and Facebook.
Deutsche was the top performer on Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax 30, with shares in the company up 1.4 per cent against a slip of 0.1 per cent for the overall index. The Europe-wide Stoxx 600 was 0.1 per cent softer, while the index tracking its banks was up 0.1 per cent.
London’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.2 per cent and the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.4 per cent.
Attention was turning to a significant roster of central bank meetings scheduled for this week, that are due to test perceptions of the dovish stance taken recently by a series of global monetary policymakers.
The US Federal Reserve’s policy statement is due on Wednesday. The Bank of Japan and Bank of England will make their own policy decisions on Thursday, with central bankers in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand also due to meet the same day.
“We see this week’s FOMC meeting providing an opportunity for the Fed to manage market expectations, as the market’s pricing of rate cuts has materially diverged from the central bank’s patient policy stance,” BlackRock said in a note to clients.
In the meantime, there was a pause in the wider rally for eurozone government bonds after it took yields to a series of record lows last week on demand for the relative safety of the debt, in line with concern about the outlook for global growth.
Germany’s 10-year Bund, seen as Europe’s safest debt, was steady, yielding minus 0.245 per cent, leaving investors holding it to maturity facing a loss.
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury slipped 0.9 basis points to 2.0855 per cent, while the more policy-sensitive two-year yield rose 1.8 basis points to 1.8687 per cent.
The cautious feel to sentiment lingered as investors also kept watch on the trade dispute and geopolitical tension in the Middle East. Brent crude came off a two-session rally after an attack on two oil tankers near the Straits of Hormuz stoked worries about potential supply disruption. The international marker, which had traded around some of its weakest levels of 2019 before the incident, fell 1.7 per cent to $60.94 a barrel.
Sterling traded near its weakest level of 2019, slipping further below $1.26 as the Conservative leadership race and Brexit uncertainty continued to drag.