, believing it would not lead to a full-scale military confrontation that would rock investor confidence.
That followed record levels in the three major share indexes on Wall Street on Thursday. Stock markets have got off to a strong start in 2019 despite US President Donald Trump's decision to kill military commander Qassem Soleimani, the second most powerful figure in Iran, in a missile strike in Baghdad.
Investors digested the report as a prelude to the upcoming visit by China's Vice Premier Liu He, head of the country's negotiation team in China-US trade talks, to Washington next week to sign a trade deal with the US.MSCI's emerging market currency index, although little changed on Friday, hit one-and-a-half-year highs on Thursday in what is likely to be its sixth straight week of gains as it has also benefited from three US rate cuts in 2019.Gold eased 0.
Oil prices, which spiked earlier this week on worries that tensions with Iran would disrupt global supplies, retreated further. The benchmark 10-year German bond yield fell one basis point to -0.236% but for the week remains up almost five basis points, in a strong signal of investors' willingness to pull back from safe-haven government debt for riskier assets.
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