"Global Stocks Spooked As US Treasury Yields Resume Their Ascent"

From ZeroHedge:

Global markets entered Wednesday in tentative fashion as US Treasury yields resumed their upward march after dropping the day before ahead of a closely watched US CPI report and as the US Treasury prepared to sell more debt to fund the soaring US deficit.

The mood in stocks soured, and European equities turned lower with American futures as Asian peers erased an advance while world stocks inched off eight-week lows; market gains were checked by fears for global economic growth, greater US decoupling, escalating trade war and the possibility of an Italy-EU clash over budget spending. The result was generally a sea of red among global capital markets in early trading.

The equity rout that resulted from the global bond selloff that took bond yields to seven-year highs this week were exacerbated by continued growth concerns arising from trade conflicts and $80-per-barrel oil, with the IMF cutting its world GDP forecasts for the first time in two years.

The yield on 10-year Treasurys resumed its ascent to 3.23% from 3.20%, after falling for the first time in a week on Tuesday, putting a lid on early trader optimism.
"We are at some sort of critical moment, a crossroads, for bond and equity markets,” Marie Owens Thomsen, global head of economic research at Indosuez Wealth Management, said noting that while U.S. 10-year yields at 2% unequivocally favored equity investment, this was not so above 3%. "This January we took out the 2 percent (yield) handle and now we are wondering if we are permanently taking out the 3 percent handle as well. That makes the climate for equities much more challenging."

The MSCI world equity index rose 0.14% after four days in the red. However, while Japan’s Nikkei and MSCI’s Asia-Pacific index outside Japan rose 0.2-0.3 percent, European shares slipped 0.2 percent, undermined by more bellicose rhetoric from Italian politicians.


The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped as most sectors turned lower. The European basic resources index (SXPP) - which was one of the best-performing sectors since the end of August - fell as much as 2.2%, one of Wednesday’s main sector laggards, as investors rotated toward defensive sub-groups including telecoms and health care. Milan-listed stocks traded between gains and losses, rising off 18-month lows hit earlier in the week.

Europe's weakness followed a modest recovery of bullish sentiment in Asia, as shares in Japan rose after four days of losses, South Korean equities slumped as trading resumed after a holiday while those in China closed 0.2% higher after fluctuating between gains and losses before edging barely up after early gains slipped with lithium-related stocks tumbling, while Tencent suffered a record ninth day of declines in Hong Kong....

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