"Despite rising rates and worries of a recession, the market continues to climb a wall of worry and I think earnings will justify the multiples expansion that we've seen this year," said Patrick Spencer, vice chair of equities as RW Baird.
"We have got to accept that we're moving into a period of normalised interest rates of 3, 4 or 5%, and historically they are not particularly high rates... but the disinflationary argument is very much there," Spencer said.CHINA STIMULUS?Copper prices were set for their biggest quarterly fall since September 2022 on the weak Chinese data and prospects of further U.S. rate hikes.
The yen remained fragile after hitting the psychologically important barrier of 145 per dollar, fuelling intervention worries as Japan's Finance Minister Shunichi SuzukiMSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan"There is a growing divergence in the path of inflation across the region, which is leading to some disagreement about the right path for policy," said Rob Carnell, ING's regional head of research, Asia-Pacific.