Emerging Markets Emerging stocks scale 10-week highs as China boosts growth hopes

by **Cals** Tue 08 Mar 2016, 07:41

Emerging Markets

[size=28]Emerging stocks scale 10-week highs as China boosts growth hopes

By Reuters / Reuters | March 7, 2016 : 8:04 PM MYT

LONDON (March 7): Emerging market stocks touched 10-week highs on Monday, enjoying a lift from China's pledges to sustain growth as well as last week's U.S. data and a fresh jump in oil prices.

While a firmer dollar curbed currency market gains, MSCI's emerging index rose 0.2% for its seventh straight session of gains. Emerging sovereign dollar bond premia to Treasuries, meantime, slipped to two-month lows.

Russian dollar-denominated stocks firmed 1.2% to a three-month high, while bourses in Hungary, Romania and Turkey added around half a percent.

Friday's U.S. data soothed investors' concerns over economic growth by showing robust employment gains in February. Oil prices, meanwhile, jumped half a dollar to well above US$39 a barrel.

Support also came from China, where the opening of the annual parliament meeting delivered a flurry of reassurances by Beijing's top leaders that the economy would remain on sound footing despite strains from major reforms.

"For this recovery to have further legs it's very important what happens to commodity prices and that Chinese data gives the impression the government and central bank are trying to keep growth going. The targets they set on the weekend suggest that is the case," said Kasper Bartholdy, Chief EM Fixed Income Strategist at Credit Suisse.

"The news we had from the Congress and reserves data today have been helpful," he added, referring to Chinese foreign exchange reserves falling less than expected.

China's mainland stocks ended the day almost 1% higher, while Asian bourses elsewhere also clocked up gains.

One of the day's biggest share moves came from Johannesburg-listed Old Mutual, which jumped 12% in early trading, after the Anglo-South African financial services group said it was considering "all options" in a strategic review, with media speculating a break-up may be on the cards.

The broader Johannesburg index eased off three month highs , however.

The upbeat mood failed to lift most currencies.

While those of some commodity exporters such as Malaysia and Indonesia hit multi-month highs, the rouble slipped off two-month peaks and Turkey's lira fell 0.5% to its weakest since late December. South Africa's rand eased 0.2%.

In central Europe, Hungary's forint slipped 0.3% to the euro after Moody's belied expectations of a credit upgrade back to investment grade late on Friday.
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