Dollar sinks vs yen, BOJ intervention suspected ahead of weekend

NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) – The US dollar tumbled against the yen on Friday, logging its biggest daily drop against the Japanese currency in more than two months as traders and strategists said Japanese authorities may be in the market to stem a slide in their battered currency.

The yen rose as high as 144.5 per dollar on Friday, before paring gains to trade up about 1.4% at 148.195, its biggest daily jump since August 10.

“I think it’s intervention,” Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist, at Corpay in Toronto, said.

“We are seeing lots of dollar selling and the yen moving almost vertically as shorts get squeezed,” he said.

The Japanese government and the Bank of Japan conducted yen-buying, dollar-selling intervention in the foreign exchange market, the Nikkei newspaper said early on Saturday, citing a source.

Japan’s Ministry of Finance declined to comment on the matter.

“It’s very clearly the Ministry of Finance stepping in to sell dollar-yen,” said Mazen Issa, senior FX strategist at TD Securities in New York.

“They are trying to staunchly defend their very easy policy,” he said.

“A lot of folks had been looking at 150 as a key level that they would see some kind of intervention, and they let it run through to basically 152 and then the timing of their intervention happened at a very illiquid time, basically, as London was about to head home for the weekend, and it seems like it is designed to inflict as much pain as possible on, they like to use the term, speculators,” Issa said.

Earlier on Friday, Japanese finance minister Shunichi Suzuki said authorities were dealing with currency speculators “strictly”, while Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the central bank would closely watch the impact of currency moves.

With Friday’s gains, the yen was on track to snap a nine-week streak of weekly losses against the greenback.

The dollar index =USD, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of currencies, was 0.7 % lower at 112.17, down from a three-week high of 113.95, hit during the session.

The greenback came under pressure after a report said some Fed officials have signaled greater unease with big interest rate rises to fight inflation, even as they line up another big rate hike for November.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Fed officials are barreling toward another interest-rate rise of 0.75 percentage point at their November meeting, while some policymakers have begun signaling their desire to slow down the pace of increases soon.

Fed officials are likely to debate then whether and how to signal plans to approve a smaller increase in December, the report said.

The dollar has risen strongly this year helped by the Federal Reserve’s hawkish stance and robust demand for safe havens amid continuing uncertainty about the outlook for the global economy gripped by inflation.

Despite its retreat on the Fed headlines, the dollar index remains near a two decade high.

“It’s really hard to bet against the fact that the Fed is going to need to continue to be quite aggressive in its approach going forward,” said Bipan Rai, North American head of FX strategy at CIBC Capital Markets.

“That ultimately means we still see dollar upside,” Rai said.

The weakness in the dollar helped lift sterling 0.2% to USD 1.1261, even as the outlook for the pound remained murky as Britain’s ruling Conservative party gets set to pick the country’s third prime minister in two months after Liz Truss quit on Thursday.

The currency had leapt as much as 1% the previous day after Truss announced her departure.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Additional reporting by John McCrank and Dhara Ranasinghe; Editing by David Gregorio, Kirsten Donovan)

Gold jumps as dollar weakens on Fed rate-hike uncertainty

Oct 21 (Reuters) – Gold prices were on track to gain for the week, rising more than 1% on Friday as the dollar weakened amid reports of a potential debate amongst the US Federal Reserve officials about the pace of rate hikes.

Spot gold was up 1.5% at USD 1,652.21 per ounce by 2:06 p.m. ET (1806 GMT). US gold futures settled up 1.2% to USD 1,656.3.

The WSJ reported that Fed officials were barreling toward another interest-rate rise of 0.75 percentage point in November, while some have begun signaling their desire to slow down the pace of increases soon.

“The Wall Street Journal article which mentions the pace of rate hikes is being given a lot of share of mind for (market)participants,” said Daniel Ghali, commodity strategist at TD Securities.

San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly on Friday said the central bank should avoid putting the US economy into an “unforced downturn” by overtightening, adding that the Fed is nearing a point where it should slow rate hikes.

Gold is sensitive to rising interest rates, which increase the opportunity cost of holding bullion that does not pay interest.

Prices were now up about 0.6% for the week, after rebounding from their lowest level since end-September, touched earlier in the day.

With gold hitting a low, people came in and started buying it, said Michael Matousek, head trader at US Global Investors.

The dollar index gave up earlier gains and slipped 0.6%, making gold less expensive for overseas investors.

On the physical side, demand for gold in India picked up pace this week as some consumers bought into a retreat in domestic prices ahead of festivals.

Elsewhere, spot silver rose 2.7% to USD 19.16 per ounce, platinum gained 1.9% to USD 931.00 while palladium fell 1.8% to USD 2,020.34.

(Reporting by Seher Dareen in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Vinay Dwivedi)

Hedge funds suffer further outflows in Q3, stockpickers lead way

Oct 21 (Reuters) – Investors pulled an estimated $26 billion from hedge funds during the third quarter, according to data provider HFR, jarred by a global stock market plunge, soaring bond yields and geopolitical tensions.

That comes on top of a $27.5 billion outflow in the second quarter, the first time that hedge funds have seen consistent outflows from one quarter to the next since the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020, HFR numbers showed.

According to the data provider, the outflows were driven by a $12.4 billion decline in assets from hedge funds that take bets on the equity markets. However, money flowed out of every kind of hedge fund strategy, even if it was performing well.

MSCI’s World Stock Index is down about 26% so far this year and set for its biggest annual loss since the global financial crisis in 2008.

Major stock indexes continued to slide on Friday while U.S. Treasury yields rose to multi-year highs on expectations that the Federal Reserve will continue to aggressively pursue inflation with a much tighter monetary policy.

Equity hedge fund strategies that HFR tracks saw $12.4 billion of outflows in the third quarter.

An index of event driven funds, which make bets on company mergers and acquisitions, saw $600 million of outflows during the quarter, HFR data said.

Even hedge funds that have done well and made use of market volatility, like those which trade on macro-economic signals, saw outflows of $10.7 billion despite the fact one HFR index says their perfomance numbers are up over 17% for the year, HFR said.

The biggest hedge funds saw the largest declines in performance and how much money other investors have given them to manage, often combine as a figure called assets under management, HFR said.

Uncertainty would continue into the fourth quarter of the year, said HFR President Kenneth J. Heinz said. He expected that “extreme volatility and the potential for dislocations” would carry through to year end.

(Reporting by Nell Mackenzie; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Angus MacSwan)

As US Treasuries tumble, some investors say turning point is near

NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Some investors believe Treasury yields are close to peaking, even as markets continue pricing in more hawkishness from a Federal Reserve bent on taming the worst inflation in decades.

It’s a refrain that has been heard more than once in 2022, as a steep selloff in Treasuries steamrolls investors who bet markets would soon reverse, while battering stocks and fueling the dollar’s climb.

The tumble in bonds has intensified in recent days, as US Treasury yields – which move inversely to prices – hit their highest levels since the 2008 global financial crisis on concerns that the Fed would need to raise rates more aggressively to bring down consumer prices.

Meanwhile, fed funds futures late Thursday priced peak US interest rates of 5% in May next year, up from bets this month that saw the rate at 4.4% by that time.

Yet some investors see the Treasury selloff nearing an end, believing the Fed will slow the pace of its increases next year as inflation ebbs or the economy falls into a recession.

John Vail, chief global strategist at Nikko Asset Management, expects the Fed to raise rates by 150 basis points in total over the next two months, then start cutting rates in the first half of next year.

“This forecast is dovish after January, which should provide major relief for equity and bond markets,” he said.

Others think higher yields will soon start luring investors into Treasuries. Joachim Fels, a managing director and global economic advisor at US bond giant PIMCO, recently wrote that markets have already priced in future rate increases and “absolute yield levels appear much more attractive than they have for a long time.”

Benchmark 10-year yields were at 4.23% late Thursday while two-year yields were at 4.61%, presenting a more alluring picture for income-seeking investors compared with the beginning of the year, when those yields stood at 1.5% and 0.7% , respectively.

Among those espousing the view of a coming peak in yields is DoubleLine Capital chief executive Jeffrey Gundlach, who on Thursday tweeted that there are “signs of yield increase exhaustion. Treasury yields may well be peaking between now and year-end.”

Fund managers in a recent BofA Global Research survey, meanwhile, are the most bullish on long term bond yields since November 2008, with 38% expecting lower long-term rates in the next 12 months.

Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, last month told Reuters that US Treasuries are near the end of a painful decline.

Nascent Treasury bulls also point out that many yields are very close to where the Fed has said it believes interest rates will end up next year.

Some investors have been more hesitant to call a peak, citing the Fed’s single-minded focus on bringing down consumer prices, which have proven far more stubborn than many expected this year.

“With inflation so high and still rising, it would be a mistake to assume that central banks will pivot to easing if something indeed breaks,” BoFA’s strategists wrote. “Depending on where they are in their tightening cycle, they may not even pause.”

The Fed has raised rates by 300 basis points so far this year. Fed funds futures traders are pricing in a 95% chance of a 75 basis points hike at the central bank’s Nov. 2 meeting, with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s views on inflation and the economy seen as the next potential catalyst for yield moves.

Futures show traders pricing in a 75% probability of another 75 bps hike in December, according to CME Group data.

Zhiwei Ren, managing director and portfolio manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management, believes yields may subside if the economy enters a recession. But he said persistent labor shortages, broken supply chains and other long-term changes in the global economy are likely to keep inflation elevated.

“Just three months ago I was thinking 3.5% was a great level for the 10-year,” he said. “Now I think the 10-year could go to 5% or even higher over the next few years.”

(Reporting by Davide Barbuscia; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Gerry Doyle)

Oil prices settle up; China demand hopes outweigh recession worry

NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Oil prices settled up on Friday as hopes of stronger Chinese demand and a weakening US dollar outweighed concern about a global economic downturn and the impact of interest rate rises on fuel use.

To fight inflation, the US Federal Reserve is trying to slow the economy and will keep raising its short-term rate target, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker said on Thursday in comments that weighed on oil.

But crude is gaining support from a looming European Union ban on Russian oil, as well as the recent 2 million-barrels-per-day output cut agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, known as OPEC+.

Brent crude settled at USD 93.50 a barrel, up USD 1.12, or 1.2%. US West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) settled atUSD 85.05 a barrel, up 54 cents, 0.6%. During the session, both benchmarks had been down by more than a dollar.

Brent was up by 2% on the week, while WTI fell about 0.7%.

Traders were squaring up positions ahead of the weekend after the WTI’s November contract expiry, increasing volatility.

“The bias is to play the weekend to the long side,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

Swings in the US dollar, which typically moves inversely with oil prices, added to choppy trade.

The dollar eased against a basket of currencies after a report said some Fed officials have signalled greater unease with big interest rate rises to fight inflation, even as they line up another big rate hike for November.

Brent, which came close to its all-time high of USD 147 in March, was on track for a weekly gain of 0.8%, while US crude headed for a loss of about 1.5%. Both benchmarks dropped in the previous week.

Regarding the OPEC+ cut, which was criticized by the United States, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said the producer group was doing the right job to ensure stable and sustainable oil markets.

On Thursday, oil gained after Bloomberg News reported that Beijing was considering cutting the quarantine period for visitors to seven days from 10 days. There has been no official confirmation from Beijing.

“The knee-jerk price action provided a useful glimpse of what to expect once more punitive restrictions are lifted,” said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM, of the market’s rally after the report.

China, the world’s largest crude importer, has stuck to strict COVID-19 curbs this year, weighing heavily on business and economic activity and reducing demand for fuel.

Meanwhile, the US oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, rose two to 771 in the week to Oct. 21, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co. (BKR) said.

US oil rigs rose two to 612 this week, their highest since March 2020, while gas rigs were unchanged at 157.

(Additional reporting by Alex Lawler, Florence Tan and Emily Chow in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy, Susan Fenton and David Gregorio)

Japanese yen jumps as traders suspect intervention

TOKYO/LONDON/NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Japanese authorities likely intervened in markets to stem the slide of the country’s battered currency on Friday, market participants said, following an unexpected jump in the yen against the dollar.

The yen rose as high as 144.50 per dollar on Friday, up more than 7 yen from a 32-year low of 151.94 yen per dollar, touched earlier in the session. The dollar was last down 1.8% at 147.34 yen.

“It’s very clearly the ministry of finance stepping in to sell dollar-yen,” said Mazen Issa, senior FX strategist at TD Securities in New York.

Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at Corpay in Toronto, concurred. “We are hearing large blocks are being traded,” he said. “That typically means either larger institutions are moving money or that a central bank is intervening in size. The clearest evidence is just the scale of dollar selling that is happening.”

The Nikkei, citing a source, also said Japan had intervened to buy yen and sell dollars.

Japan’s Ministry of Finance declined to comment.

If confirmed, this would be the second time since September that Japan has intervened in the currency market to shore up the yen.

The currency, down about 22% against the dollar this year, has been battered as the Bank of Japan sticks to an ultra-loose monetary policy, while the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks aggressively raise interest rates.

The falling yen is pushing up import costs and households’ living expenses, piling pressure on Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to stop the relentless fall.

WARNING SPECULATORS

While Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has repeatedly ruled out changing the policy stance, policymakers have been vocal with their concerns.

In a speech on Friday, Kuroda stressed the central bank’s resolve to keep rates low. “Uncertainty over Japan’s economic outlook is extremely high,” Kuroda said. “We must closely watch the impact financial and currency market moves could have on Japan’s economy and price.”

Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said earlier on Friday that the authorities were dealing with currency speculators “strictly”.

“We cannot tolerate excessive moves by speculators. We will respond appropriately while watching currency market movements with a high sense of urgency,” Suzuki said.

TD’s Issa said the market intervention happened at “a very illiquid time”, when traders in London were headed home for the weekend.

“It seems like it is designed to inflict as much pain as possible on, they like to use the term, speculators,” Issa said.

RARE MOVES

Japan has rarely intervened in currency markets. Before the September intervention, the last time it stepped in to support the currency was during the Asian financial crisis of 1997 to 1998.

It spent up to a record 2.8 trillion yen (USD 19.7 billion) – equivalent to half its annual defence spending – in the intervention last month.

Speculation that Japan would step into the market again had grown over the past week as yen weakened beyond a key psychological level of 150 per dollar on Thursday for the first time since August 1990.

While authorities have denied having a line-in-the-sand in mind, political factors mean they do need to be mindful of defending psychologically important thresholds.

They also look at technical charts for key support levels for the Japanese currency which, if broken, could accelerate its decline.

Some market participants have pointed to the dollar/yen’s July 1990 high above 152 as the next threshold, then 155.

Axel Merk, president of Merk Investments and portfolio manager of the Merk Hard Currency Fund, said he believes there is little to stop the yen from weakening again, for now.

“Ultimately these interventions don’t help that much if the underlying policy is fostering the weak yen,” he said.

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto and Leika Kihara in TOKYO, John McCrank, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Gertrude Chavez and Ira Iosebashvili in NEW YORK and Dhara Ranasinghe in LONDON; Additional reporting by Kantaro Komiya and Sakura Murakami; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim, Shri Navaratnam, Kirsten Donovan, Diane Craft and Daniel Wallis)

Wall Street ends lower as Fed worries outweigh earnings

NEW YORK, Oct 20 (Reuters) – US stocks closed lower on Thursday as data on the labor market and comments from a US Federal Reserve official reinforced expectations the central bank will be aggressive in hiking interest rates outweighed a flurry of solid corporate earnings.

Stocks initially rose early in the session, boosted by gains in names such as IBM (IBM), up 4.73% after the IT services company beat quarterly earnings estimates on Wednesday and said it expects to exceed full-year revenue growth targets. AT&T Inc. (T) surged 7.72% upon raising its annual profit forecast.

But stocks were unable to hold their gains as strong weekly jobless claims and comments from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker bolstered concerns about the Fed hiking rates and potentially tilting the economy into a recession.

Harker said the Fed is not done raising its short-term rate target as high inflation persists, helping to push the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note US10YT=RR to its highest level since June 2008 at 4.239%.

“It’s interest rates that are driving equity volatility, that is the way we have been looking at things all year, that is kind of the precursor of seeing things calm down in the equity space and feeling better about adding risk there is seeing volatility decline in interest rates,” said Zachary Hill, head of portfolio management at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“I’m not sure we are going to be able to see that pause that a few Fed members have been pointing to and certainly a few market participants have been kind of latching on to.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 90.22 points, or 0.3%, to 30,333.59, the S&P 500 lost 29.38 points, or 0.80%, to 3,665.78 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 65.66 points, or 0.61%, to 10,614.84.

Better-than-expected results thus far has pushed earnings growth expectations for third-quarter for S&P 500 companies to 3.1% from a 2.8% increase earlier in the week, but still well below the 11.1% increase that was forecast at the start of July.

Tesla Inc. (TSLA) slumped 6.65% as the electric-vehicle maker flagged persistent logistics challenges, with fourth-quarter deliveries growing by less than the aimed 50%.

Stocks have been under pressure this year as concerns about the impact of the Fed’s aggressive path of interest rate hikes on corporate earnings and the overall economy have mounted as the central bank tries to quell stubbornly high inflation.

Other data showed sales of existing homes fell for an eight straight month, while another reading showed factory activity in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s district contracted again in October.

The US central bank is widely expected to announce a fourth straight 75 basis-point hike at its November meeting, with an outside chance of a full percentage point increase.

Volume on US exchanges was 11.37 billion shares, compared with the 11.62 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.12-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.34-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 3 new 52-week highs and 28 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 53 new highs and 239 new lows.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

US recap: EUR/USD up, but early gains and UK-led risk-on flows shed

Oct 20 (Reuters) – The dollar eased on Thursday but recovered from its lows after risk-on flows following British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s resignation reversed as stocks retreated and Treasury yields rose.

Markets projected 2023 peak Fed rate is up at 5% versus 3.18% for the ECB and 0.20% for the BoJ. The BoE’s priced to hike rates by 300bp by mid-2023, with a ceiling near 5.17%.

US initial jobless claims fell to three-week lows, though continued claims rose. Philly Fed came in below forecast, but less negative than September’s.

Existing homes sales were about as forecast, though the downtrend in sales and prices shows the toll 30-year mortgage rates near 7% is taking. With that, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker later reaffirmed rates need to be well above 4% by year-end.

EUR/USD was up 0.2%, well off early highs.

USD/JPY, the second-largest component of the dollar index, was marginally positive after a swift rise in Treasury yields brought prices back up toward Thursday’s 32-year peak at 150.09 on EBS.

The earlier initial fleeting 150.09-149.63 drop will lead to more suspicions of stealthy Japanese intervention after recent warnings.

The BoJ remains unwilling to raise its -0.1% policy rate and is also being forced to do more QE to keep 10-year yields below its the 25bp yield curve cap, making MoF intervention to slow the yen’s fall futile.

Japanese CPI Friday may be glossed over again.

Sterling rose 0.12%, shedding most of the gains from 1.1172 to 1.1338 that followed Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent’s warning that BoE rate hikes currently priced in could present be a “pretty material” hit to the economy, assuming the reversion to tighter fiscal policy plays out.

That lowered Nov. 3 BoE meeting rate hike pricing to 75bp from recent highs near 100bp, supporting risk-taking and the pound. Truss’s resignation prompted sterling’s rise to 1.1338 high, but that was the third consecutive lower daily peak, suggesting a sell-the-news bias toward less worrisome UK fiscal and political matters.

(Editing by Burton Frierson; Randolph Donney is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.)

Gold trims gains as Treasury yields march higher

Oct 20 (Reuters) – Gold prices pared gains on Thursday, having risen about 1% on a softer dollar, as a jump in equities markets and rallying Treasury yields pulled bullion back toward three-week lows hit earlier.

Spot gold rose 0.1% to USD 1,629.75 per ounce by 1:51 p.m. ET (1751 GMT), earlier touching its lowest since end-September. US gold futures settled up 0.2% at USD 1,636.8.

“It is still our opinion that if rates continue to creep higher as they do, it will continue to lean on the gold market in the near term,” said David Meger, director of metals trading at High Ridge Futures.

“The focus continues to be clearly on interest rates and Fed rate-hike expectations.”

Fed Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker said the central bank is not done with raising its short-term rate target amid high levels of inflation.

Higher US interest rates increase the opportunity cost of holding zero-yield bullion.

Yields on US Treasuries continued their relentless march higher after data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly last week, strengthening expectations of a strong Fed rate hike.

Although separate data showed US existing home sales dropped for an eighth straight month in September.

“Gold prices have been more focused on the anticipation of what the Fed is gonna do next,” Jeffrey Sica, CEO of Circle Squared Alternative Investments, said.

“There’s now the thought that they are potentially slowing the economy… and they may back off this hawkish stance which is helping us today and could help us going forward. But it’s all very data dependent.”

The dollar index was down 0.2% against its rivals, while European shares rose after Liz Truss said she was resigning as the United Kingdom’s prime minister.

Elsewhere, silver rose 1.3% to USD 18.67 per ounce, platinum was up 3.1 % to USD 911.21, while palladium gained 3% to USD 2,060.48.

(Reporting by Seher Dareen in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Swati Verma; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Shailesh Kuber)

European shares rise after UK’s Truss resigns as prime minister

Oct 20 (Reuters) – European shares rose on Thursday after Liz Truss said she was resigning as the United Kingdom’s prime minister, brought down by her economic program that wrecked havoc on markets.

The region-wide STOXX 600 closed 0.3% up after flirting between gains and losses right after the announcement in London.

Appointed on Sept. 6, Truss was forced last week to sack her finance minister and closest political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng, and abandon almost all of her economic program after their plans for vast unfunded tax cuts crashed the pound and British bonds, forcing the Bank of England to intervene.

A leadership election will be completed within the next week. Sterling rallied and the London’s FTSE 100 .FTSE closed higher.

“Truss took on an extra relevance to markets because of the policies that she attempted to implement and the markets’ reaction to them,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.

“You’d think that if someone was that deeply unpopular the market might rally or the currency might rally when she left. But I think the fact that neither is happening is telling us that markets do crave political stability and we don’t have that.”

Meanwhile, Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia and rival Ericsson reported weaker-than-expected earnings, bruised by ongoing patent battles which pressured margins and offset strong demand for 5G equipment.

Shares of the companies slumped 7.6% and 14.8%, respectively.

More than half of the sectors advanced, with tech .SX8P rising 1.94%. Telecom was the biggest loser, down 2.5%.

The STOXX 600 had snapped a four-day rally on Wednesday, as earnings optimism was snuffed out by worrying inflation reports from Canada and the United Kingdom that fanned fears about more aggressive policy moves from central banks to rein in prices.

“There has been a pretty negative reaction in risk assets and bond markets to the inflation data. It ultimately means central banks like the Fed and the Bank of Canada may have to do even more work to tighten,” said Stephen Gallo, European head of FX strategy for BMO Capital Markets.

Adding to the concerns, data on Thursday showed German producer prices rose more than expected in September, as energy prices soared.

However, in a bright spot, Finnish banking group Nordea beat profit estimates, while Hermes added 1.6% after the Birkin bag maker saw a sharp pickup in sales growth with no signs of a slowdown.

Among other stocks, Swedish Match AB gained 1.9% after Philip Morris International PM.N raised its buyout offer for the nicotine products maker.

(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza, Subhranshu Sahu, Arun Koyyur and Paul Simao)

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