Global equities are poised for their best week of the year as attention now shifts to US jobs

As investors applauded a halt to U.S. interest rate hikes, global markets were poised for their largest weekly gain in a year on Friday, with the dollar weakening.

However, Friday's trading was comparatively quiet as investors awaited the release of important U.S. employment data later in the day.

Since Monday, the MSCI World Stock Index has increased by 4.3%, marking the biggest weekly increase since November 2022. For the day, the index was up 0.23%.

The Fed held interest rates unchanged for a second meeting straight on Wednesday, and the Bank of England did the same on Thursday, which caused bond yields to plummet and spark the stock market rise.

While many investors think that lower borrowing costs are likely to come next, central bank officials emphasised that more may need to be done to combat inflation.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which is used to determine borrowing rates globally, fell 20 basis points (bps) on Wednesday and Thursday. Since reaching a 16-year high above 5% last week, the yield has now decreased by almost 36 bps.

On Friday, the yield, which is inversely correlated with price, remained at 4.666%.

The U.S. Treasury's decision to issue less long-term debt than anticipated on Wednesday and data on Thursday indicating the U.S. economy may finally be slowing contributed to the bond market's advance.

Friday's investor attention is now focused on the US nonfarm payrolls data, which was released at 12:30 GMT. The U.S. economy is predicted by economists to have added 180,000 jobs in October, following a stunning 336,000 growth in September.

Despite a 30,000 employment drag from the autoworker strikes, Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius stated in a note to clients that the firm expected payrolls to rise by 195,000.

(Sources: investing.com, reuters.com)