Stocks hit by China clampdown ahead of earnings-packed week

  • Date: 26-Jul-2021
  • Source: Zawya
  • Sector:Economy
  • Country:Middle East
  • Who else needs to know?

Stocks hit by China clampdown ahead of earnings-packed week

LONDON- Stock markets fell on Monday as concerns over tighter regulations in China mounted amid caution ahead of a huge week for U.S. corporate earnings and a Federal Reserve meeting. The key event of the week for markets is the Fed meeting, where investors will look for Chair Jerome Powell's comments about the timing for the start of tapering of the central bank's asset purchases. This week also sees more than one-third of S&P 500 companies report quarterly results including Facebook Inc, Tesla Inc, Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com. Forecast-beating earnings have helped fuel this year's stock rally, but the question is whether it can last or if the optimism has been priced in. By 1100 GMT, the EURO Stoxx 50 was 0.44% lower, the German DAX 0.45% weaker and Britain's FTSE 100 down 0.29% . MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed down 2.1% to its lowest since December. Wall Street was set to open lower, but remained just half a percent off record highs. Elsewhere, bitcoin jumped to its highest since mid-June on hopes of growing acceptance of the cryptocurrency, including speculation Amazon might accept it as payment. Short sellers covering their positions