The Nikkei’s world-beating 6.3% surge so far this year – its best start in three decades – makes it a global outlier, however, rather than a driver of gains elsewhere. Britain’s FTSE is down about 2% and Europe’s STOXX 600 has shed 1.3%.
The disappointing run for Chinese stocks continues from 2023, with mainland blue chips and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng both slumping more than 4% since the start of the year.
Friday’s data releases from China show persistent deflationary pressure and weak consumption, keeping the onus on Beijing for more stimulus measures to turn things around.
Britain has a fairly heavy calendar of data releases on Friday, with GDP and industrial output due to test sterling’s recent resilience.
In the U.S., the S&P 500 and Dow are among the very few major stock benchmarks globally that are positive so far this year, although they are just barely better than flat.
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Graphics are produced by Reuters.
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/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/K6HTEQUSTZPRPE2H6E55BXR2IE.jpg "Apple gets pipped, Uniqlo lifts the Nikkei 40")
