China: Shares drop after housing briefing fails to impress
China shares rose in Thursday morning trading but dropped after the country's housing minister gave an underwhelming briefing at which he announced that Beijing would speed up bank lending for unfinished developments. Traders who'd been hoping for more drastic stimulus measures punished the property sector, sending China's CSI 300 Real Estate Index plunging 7.85% on the day. The larger CSI 300, which tracks the 300 top stocks on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, gave up 1.13%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.02%. China is set to announce its GDP data for the April-September quarter on Friday.
Japan: Export drop drags down market
The Nikkei 225 slipped 0.69% after Tokyo announced that exports fell for the first time in 10 months in September, marking a 1.7% year-over-year drop on weak numbers from China and the U.S. Financial stocks were a rare bright spot, as a strong earnings report from Morgan Stanley pulled the sector higher. Softbank, the majority owner of semiconductor heavyweight Arm Holdings, defied a tech stock slump with a 1.19% gain.
Europe: Shares rise in anticipation of rate cut
European stocks moved into positive territory early Thursday as traders awaited an expected interest rate cut at today's European Central Bank meeting. Nestle fell 2% after it lowered its forecast for full-year sales just weeks after it replaced CEO Mark Schneider, but shares rebounded and were up over 2% around 11 a.m. CET. LVMH shares clawed back a little over 1% in morning trading a day after they fell 7% on the luxury giant's report of an unexpected drop in third-quarter sales. The Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.52%, while the FTSE 100 rose 0.23%.
U.S. premarket up on financial, chip optimism
U.S. markets were up across the board in premarket trading Thursday, after an up day buoyed by strong earnings from Morgan Stanley, United Airlines and others. U.S.-traded shares of Taiwan chip giant TSMC soared more than 7% premarket after the company announced a 54% jump in net profit on the back of the AI boom. Nvidia shares followed, rising over 2.5% in the early hours. Investors are awaiting jobless claims, retail sales, and industrial production data to be released Thursday morning.