On Monday morning (20 Nov, 9:30 AM, GMT+7, Bangkok time), Asia Pacific major indices traded mixed, after the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) maintained the 1-year Loan Prime Rate (LPR) at a record low of 3.45%, and the 5-year rate at 4.2% for 5-month straight.
Japan’s NIKKEI barely edged down by 0.01% to 33,581.23. South Korea’s KOSPI went up by 0.85% to 2,490.83, and Australia’s ASX 200 edged up by 0.14% to 7,059.1.
As for stocks in China, Shanghai’s SSEC slid by 0.19% to 3,048.66. Hong Kong’s HSI rose by 0.88% to 17,607.06, and Shenzhen’s SZI slid by 0.28% to 9,952.64.
Meanwhile, US markets on Friday night barely rose as the overall stocks traded with no direction. XOM led the energy sector with over 2% gain, while the other sectors were mixed as AMAT fell by 4%, as well as MSFT and GOOG that both slid by over 1%.
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) barely edged up by 0.01% to 34,947.28. NASDAQ slightly went up by 0.08% to 14,125.48 and S&P 500 slightly rose by 0.13% to 4,514.02. On the other hand, VIX fell by 3.63% to 13.8.
As for commodities futures, crude oil futures rose over 3% on Friday after dropping by 5% a day earlier. Brent settled higher by 3.2% to $79.91 per barrel, while the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose by 3.03% to $75.11 a barrel.
On this morning, Brent rose by 0.43% to $80.96 a barrel and WTI also followed by 0.38% to $76.18 per barrel. Furthermore, the gold futures barely edged down by 0.05% to $1,983.8 per Troy ounce.
