U.S. Stocks Climb, Gold Advances as Dollar Slips: Markets Wrap

(Bloomberg) — U.S. stock indexes ticked higher in holiday-thinned trading as investors looked ahead to January and a promised trade breakthrough between the world’s biggest economies. Treasuries held steady, gold advanced and the dollar drifted lower.

Consumer companies led gains on the S&P 500 Index as trading resumed after the Christmas break, while European markets remained shuttered. Shares ended higher in Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul, while exchanges were closed in Hong Kong and Sydney.

Ten-year Treasury yields held near 1.9% while the dollar slipped versus major peers as U.S. jobless claims data came in close to expectations. The Japanese yen headed for its biggest drop in two weeks.

Investors are pushing the $51 trillion MSCI ACWI Index of global stocks toward a more-than 8% advance in the final three months of the year, a quarterly performance only bettered a handful of times in the past decade. Attention now turns to January, when they’ll look for the U.S. and China to consummate a phase-one trade agreement, and for signs of a trough in manufacturing after some poor purchasing-managers’ data for November.

In China, the overnight repo rate fell to the lowest level since 2009 Thursday in wake of recent liquidity injections by the central bank.

Elsewhere, the pound fluctuated before rising for a third session. held around $61 a barrel in New York. Gold advanced back above $1,500 an ounce, having increased every session this week.

Here are some events that may be of interest this week:

• Japan retail sales and industrial production are scheduled for Friday.

And here are some of the major market moves:

Stocks

• The S&P 500 Index gained 0.2% as of 9:54 a.m. New York time.
• The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.2%.
• The MSCI All-Country World Index added 0.2%.

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dipped 0.1%.
• The British pound increased 0.2% to $1.2991.
• The euro was little changed at $1.1095.
• The Japanese yen weakened 0.2% to 109.6 per dollar.

Bonds

• The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 1.90%.
• The yield on two-year Treasuries rose one basis point to 1.63%.

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude futures increased 0.7% to $61.53 a barrel.
• Gold gained 0.6% to $1,509 an ounce.

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