CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Asian markets closed mostly higher, and the major European markets are fairly steady on Thursday, despite political uncertainty in France. Expectations of a interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and a few other central banks appear to be aiding sentiment.
U.S. index futures are up marginally, and the six-currency Dollar Index is up with a modest gain.
In commodities, brent crude and WTI crude are modestly lower, and the yellow metal is down marginally, but still hovers near record highs.
Cryptocurrencies are showing some weakness.
The focus is on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech at the Community Bank Conference today.
A few other Fed officials, including Michelle Bowman and Michael Barr are also scheduled to speak today.
Here is a snapshot of the major world markets at this hour.
Stock Indexes:
DJIA Futures at 46,890.00 (up 0.05%) S&P Futures at 6,805.25 (up 0.07%) Nasdaq Futures at 25,340.25 (up 0.04%)
UK's FTSE 100 at 9,527.10 (down 0.23%) Germany's DAX at 24,748.90 (up 0.51%) France's CAC 40 at 8,104.74 up (0.55%) Euro Stoxx 50 at 5,658.75 (up 0.16%) Japan's Nikkei 225 at 48,580.44 (up 1.77%) Australia's S&P/ASX 200 at 8,969.8 (up 0.25%) Hong Kong's Hang Seng at 26,752.59 (down 0.29%) Shanghai Composite Index at 3,933.97 (up 1.32%)
Currencies:
EUR/USD at 1.1613 (down 0.13%) GBP/USD at 1.3370 (down 0.25%) USD/JPY at 152.76 (up 0.05%) AUD/USD at 0.6595 (up 0.14%) USD/CAD at 1.3953 (up 0.01%) Dollar Index at 99.00 (up 0.08%)
10-year Government bond yields:
U.S. at 4.1220% (up 0.001) Germany at 2.6814% (up 0.0045) France at 3.4980% (down 0.0.17) UK at 4.7140 (down 0.007) Japan at 1.6970 (up 0.0069)
Commodities:
Brent Oil Futures (Dec) at $66.05 (down 0.3%) Crude WTI (Nov) at $62.19 (down 0.58%) Gold Futures (Dec) at $4,061.20 (down 0.23%)
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin at $122,271 (down 0.7%) Ethereum at $4,363.28 (down 3.14%) XRP at $2.8179 (down 2.2%) BNB at $1,288.75 (down 2.17%) Solana at $222.94 (up 0.34%)
Copyright(c) 2025 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2025 AFX News
