BLBG:U.S. Stock Futures Gain as Spain Bonds Fall; Yen Weakens
U.S. equity-index futures gained and European shares pared losses while the yen weakened and soybeans declined. Spanish and Italian bonds fell as the region’s finance ministers prepared to meet to discuss aid to Cyprus and Greece.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures climbed 0.3 percent at 10:10 a.m. in London. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 0.1 percent, trimming this year’s gain to 2.7 percent. Novo Nordisk A/S plunged the most in almost four years after failing to win U.S. approval for a new insulin. Italy’s 10-year bond yield rose three basis points to 4.58 percent, approaching a two-month high. The yen weakened against all its major peers, falling 0.8 percent versus the euro. Soybeans declined 1.1 percent.
European finance chiefs were set to meet in Brussels today as a tightening election contest in Italy and corruption allegations in Spain threaten to reignite the region’s debt crisis. Ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 will gather in Moscow later this week. Haruhiko Kuroda, one of the potential candidates to head the Bank of Japan, said additional monetary easing can be justified this year.
Stocks “were off to the races at the beginning of the year and it was too much to be sustainable,” Frances Hudson, who helps manage about $248 billion as a strategist at Standard Life Investments in London, said in an interview with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television. “Having a nice pause to consolidate is a good thing and allows people to take a more measured approach.”
Equity trading volume was lower than average, with markets in Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia closed for public holidays.
Sanofi Gains
Three shares advanced for every two that declined in Stoxx the 600, with trading volume less than 36 percent the 30-day average. Novo Nordisk sank 12 percent in Copenhagen. Sanofi, which produces the best-selling Lantus insulin, jumped 4.3 percent in Paris for the biggest gain since November 2011.
Lundin Petroleum AB tumbled 12 percent after saying resources in its part of the Johan Sverdrup oil discovery may be toward the low end of previous estimates. Royal Ahold NV advanced 5.1 percent in Amsterdam after agreeing to sell its 60 percent stake in ICA, Sweden’s largest food retailer, to Hakon Invest AB for 20 billion kronor ($3.1 billion).
The S&P 500 has rallied 6.4 percent in 2013 to its highest level since November 2007 as U.S. lawmakers reached a budget compromise and companies reported better-than-estimated earnings. Loews Corp. is one of three companies in the U.S. gauge reporting earnings today.
Italy’s 10-year bond yield approached an eight-week high of 4.63 percent set on Feb. 8. The rate on similar-maturity Spanish debt climbed four basis points to 5.41 percent. German bunds and U.S. Treasuries were little changed, with 10-year yields at 1.61 percent and 1.96 percent, respectively.
Yen Weakens
The yen weakened 0.5 percent to 93.10 per dollar. The euro climbed 0.2 percent to $1.3387, snapping a three-day decline.
The S&P GSCI gauge of 24 commodities slid 0.2 percent. Soybeans fell after the U.S. Department of Agriculture raised its estimate of world inventories in a report on Feb. 8. Wheat retreated 0.5 percent and gasoline slumped 0.5 percent.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index slipped less than 0.1 percent as price swings fell to an all-time low amid Lunar New Year holidays. Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite Index rose 0.3 percent to a record and Poland’s WIG20 Index advanced for a third day. Trading volume was 25 percent less than the 30-day average in Jakarta and 46 percent below average in Warsaw. Benchmark gauges in Russia and India swung between gains and losses.
To contact the reporters on this story: Stephen Kirkland in London at skirkland@bloomberg.net; Glenys Sim in Singapore at gsim4@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Justin Carrigan at jcarrigan@bloomberg.net
