Nikkei 225

World stocks stayed near peaks and currencies moved in tight ranges on Wednesday as China’s 19th Communist Party Congress opened while focus in Europe turned to speeches from top euro zone central bankers before next week’s key policy meeting, as well as Catalonia's ultimatum due on Thursday. S&P futures are solidly in the green as usual, with Dow futures jumping above 23,000, driven higher by IBM as investors looked for new reasons to extend gains after hitting new all-time highs Tuesday.

Global markets traded near all-time highs on Tuesday, with S&P futures, Asian shares and European stocks all flat this morning, while oil continued to gain on Kurdish geopolitical concerns while most industrial metals fell.  The euro extended its recent slide and stocks drifted as Spain’s escalating hard-line response to the Catalonian secession threat fueled concern the crisis may intensify.

World stocks and commodities rose on Monday, boosted by upbeat Chinese data, while U.S. oil futures jumped to a near six-month high as escalating tensions between the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces threatened supply.  Global markets digested the large amount of weekend newsflow, and clearly liked what they saw as S&P futures were modestly in the green, as both European and Asian stocks are higher.

World stocks rose to a 4th consecutive record highs, while the dollar headed for its worst week; U.S. stock-index futures are steady, with European and Asian stocks higher ahead of much anticipated US inflation data, which is expected to give cues on the outlook for the Federal Reserve’s interest rates. MSCI’s all world equity index was up 0.1% after hitting record highs on Thursday. Earlier in Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan hit a 10-year high, up 0.3 percent on the day.

Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist,

Although US stock markets are getting all the attention, Japan is quietly knocking up against 20-year highs.