S&P 500 Futures Steady as Oil Holds Gains; Yen Rises Fifth Day
©2015 Bloomberg News
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(Bloomberg) — U.S. equity-index futures were little changed after the biggest weekly surge in oil prices since August helped the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index erase its losses for the year. The yen was stronger for a fifth day, while Japanese stock-index futures gained after the Topix index capped its longest streak of weekly losses in almost two years. S&P 500 futures signaled the U.S. gauge may extend gains after a surge in materials and energy shares boosted the gauge 2.8 percent in the holiday-shortened week. West Texas Intermediate futures surged 9.7 percent last week after U.S. crude inventories declined and drillers idled rigs. Markets in Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. remain closed today. Last week’s rebound in oil helped relieve some of the pressure on a sector where concerns about slumping earnings have helped drag global equity indexes lower and roiled markets for non-investment grade debt. The S&P 500 last week recouped most of its losses since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in almost a decade Dec. 16. Japan will report industrial production figures today after data Friday showed inflation ticked up slightly in November. “Since oil appears to be recovering a little it’s possible that related equities will be bought,” Shoji Hirakawa, chief equity strategist at Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo, said by phone. “We don’t have a lot of factors to move on.”
Stocks
S&P 500 futures climbed 0.1 percent by 8:20 a.m. in Tokyo, while contracts on the Nikkei 225 Stock Average were bid 0.2 percent higher. The S&P 500 jumped 55.44 points to 2,060.99 in the week, the biggest gain since November. The gauge ended the prior week with a 3.3 percent rout in the two days following the Fed’s decision. Most European markets reopen Monday.
Currencies
The dollar fell 0.1 percent to 120.21 yen. It was little changed at 1.0962 euro, after sliding 0.5 percent in New York on Thursday.
Commodities
Oil in New York slipped 0.5 percent Monday. WTI for February delivery traded at $37.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after its highest settlement since Dec. 4. Futures touched $33.98 on Dec. 21, the lowest since February 2009.
–With assistance from Naoto Hosoda, Allen Wan, Aya Takada and Ksenia Galouchko.
To contact the reporters on this story: Toshiro Hasegawa in Tokyo at thasegawa6@bloomberg.net; Chikako Mogi in Tokyo at cmogi@bloomberg.net; Nick Gentle in Hong Kong at ngentle2@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daliah Merzaban at dmerzaban@bloomberg.net; Tomoko Yamazaki at tyamazaki@bloomberg.net; Adrian Kennedy at adkennedy@bloomberg.net; Nick Gentle at ngentle2@bloomberg.net Jeff Sutherland
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