Stocks steady on hopes for diplomacy in Ukraine

SINGAPORE : U.S. stock futures bounced on Friday and selling pressure eased in Asian share markets after the U.S. Secretary of State agreed to a meeting with Russia's foreign minister, raising hopes for a diplomatic solution to the East-West standoff over Ukraine.

"It's better news than what we had yesterday," said Kyle Rodda, an analyst at IG Markets in Melbourne."But we've seen diplomatic talks go nowhere before, and the troops are still on the border, so risks remain." Overnight, safe-haven currencies such as the Japanese yen and Swiss franc climbed to two-week highs on the dollar and they retreated a little bit in Asia trade. [FRX/]

St. Louis Fed president James Bullard on Thursday reiterated his call for the Fed funds rate to be raised to 1per cent by July to combat stubbornly high inflation and Fed funds futures price about a 1/3 chance of a 50 bps hike next month to begin.

Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Stocks drop as investors cut risk on Ukraine tensionSINGAPORE : Asian markets slipped on Friday and gold stood at an eight-month high after an exchange of fire in eastern Ukraine and renewed U.S. warnings of an imminent Russian invasion had investors looking for safety ahead of the weekend.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan,, was do
Source: ChannelNewsAsia - 🏆 6. / 66 Read more »

Third Point sees more value in Amazon, likes some 'old' tech stocksBOSTON :Hedge fund Third Point LLC said it added new positions and bulked up on names it already owned when markets sold off earlier this year and said that Amazon is at an 'inflection point' that should lead to a higher share price.The New York-based firm, whose investments are closely watched by rivals, als
Source: ChannelNewsAsia - 🏆 6. / 66 Read more »