European shares failed Monday to replicate a rally from Japan and the U.S., where the S&P 500 index notched its best week in five years.
Bloomberg reports indicate that the Stoxx Europe 600 index slipped as auto and consumer stocks dropped. That contrasted with Asia, where equities built on their best week since September 2016 as Japanese stocks closed higher after the yen fell. U.S. equity futures dropped, German bunds retreated with most European bonds and the euro fluctuated.
European markets were the center of investor attention on Monday as U.S. stocks and treasuries take a break for Presidents’ Day holiday and markets in Hong Kong and China remain closed for the Lunar New Year. The continent’s equity gauge has trailed its American counterpart since a global selloff earlier this month, partly thanks to a jump in the euro.
As the week rolls on, the U.S. Treasury will open the borrowing floodgates, and it’ll be up to bond traders to signal how much that extra supply will cost American taxpayers.
The Treasury will pack in auctions totaling $258 billion this week, including record-sized sales of three- and six-month bills. With little in the way of significant economic data on the schedule, the sales will provide the clearest gauge yet of how steeply borrowing costs may rise.
In Asia, currency traders saw the yen retreat from a 15-month high even as data showed Japan’s exports and imports grew strongly in January from a year earlier in a sign the economy continues to expand.
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