Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures signaled the gauge will rebound from last week’s drop, while industrial metals fell after a Chinese state-owned newspaper said some banks curbed loans to developers. Ukrainian shares jumped the most since May 2010 and U.S. natural gas rose.
S&P 500 futures advanced 0.4 percent at 8:23 a.m. in New York, after the gauge slipped 0.2 percent on Feb. 21. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index slid 0.3 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.1 percent. HSBC Holdings Plc fell more than 3 percent after earnings missed estimates. The Ukrainian Equities Index jumped 12 percent. Germany’s 10-year yield rose two basis points to 1.68 percent. Copper dropped 1.4 percent and U.S. natural gas climbed to a five-year high.
Janet Yellen, in her first global forum as Federal Reserve chair, won praise at the Group of 20 nations meeting over the weekend for helping ease emerging-market concerns as the U.S. tapers monetary stimulus. Industrial Bank Co. and other unidentified lenders have curbed loans to the property sector and related industries such as steel and cement, Shanghai Securities News reported. The U.S. and the European Union said they are ready to aid Ukraine as lawmakers in Kiev work to set up a coalition government.
“You can see the underlying strength of the market because the S&P 500 is so close to its all-time high, but investors are not complacent,” Heinz-Gerd Sonnenschein, an equity-market strategist at Deutsche Postbank AG, said by phone from Bonn, Germany. “We’re in a bullish but healthy market. We still need to see hard data confirming the state of the U.S. economy.
The S&P 500 is 0.7 percent away from its all-time high reached last month.
Comcast Gains
Comcast Corp. added 1.4 percent in early New York trading after people familiar with the matter said Netflix Inc. agreed to pay for direct access to the cable company’s broadband network. Netflix gained 1 percent.
The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 1.8 percent, the most since Jan. 6, and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong fell 1.4 percent.
‘‘China is the main risk for EM assets,” Maarten-Jan Bakkum, an emerging-markets strategist at ING Investment Management Co. in The Hague, said by e-mail. “Slower growth in Chinese real-estate investment would have a big impact on Chinese growth and on EM growth as the emerging world is very dependent on Chinese demand.”
Ukraine’s April 2023 dollar bonds rose for a third day, sending the yield down 1.11 percentage points to 9.08 percent, the lowest since Jan. 28. The country’s interim government said it needs $35 billion of aid to avoid default as it issued an arrest warrant for fleeing President Viktor Yanukovych for his role in last week’s violence.
HSBC Earnings
HSBC dropped 3.4 percent after Europe’s largest bank reported full-year pretax profit that missed analysts’ estimates. PostNL NV lost 19 percent after the Dutch mail service posted a full-year loss that was wider than forecast. RSA Insurance Group Plc slid 3.4 percent after the U.K. company said it is considering a rights offer.
Volkswagen AG tumbled 5.4 percent after offering to buy the remaining stake in Swedish truckmaker Scania AB for 6.7 billion euros ($9.2 billion). Scania soared 32 percent to its highest price since July 2007.
U.S. natural gas rallied as much as 5.8 percent to the highest since December 2008. Meteorologists are monitoring the possibility of “returning disruptive snow to the Northeast,” AccuWeather Inc. said in report yesterday. West Texas Intermediate oil was little changed at $102.25 a barrel.
Copper fell to $7,052 a metric ton. Gold climbed 0.6 percent to $1,332.73 an ounce, a third consecutive advance.
Euro Weakens
The euro weakened against 13 of its 16 major peers as reports showed euro-area inflation stayed below the European Central Bank’s 2 percent target for a fourth month.
The average yield on junk-rated corporate bonds in euros fell to a record 4.5 percent, while the yield on investment- grade debt dropped to 1.9 percent, approaching the lowest since May 31, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data.
The cost of insuring high-yield corporate bonds in euros against losses fell to the lowest since October 2007, with the Markit iTraxx Crossover index of credit-default swaps on 50 European companies with speculative-grade ratings dropping 0.5 basis point to 274 basis points.