10 things you need to know in markets, October 22

REUTERS/Aly
Song

Good morning! Here’s what you need to know in markets on Monday.

1. Chinese stocks are trading sharply higher on Monday, adding to
mammoth gains achieved on Friday that were fueled by a wave of
supportive measures rolled out by Chinese
policymakers. After jumping 2.76% on Friday, the
benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has risen by a further 4.17%,
putting the index on track to record its largest two-day
percentage gain since early August 2015.

2. Foreigners sold a net 4.01 billion riyals ($1.07 billion) in
Saudi stocks in the week ending October 18, exchange data showed
on Sunday — one of the biggest selloffs since the market opened
to direct foreign buying in mid-2015. The
selloff came during a week when investors were rattled by Saudi
Arabia’s deteriorating relations with foreign governments
following the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

3. Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia admitted that Khashoggi died
inside their
consulate. The Saudi foreign
minister denied Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had prior
knowledge, but many are skeptical of the Kingdom’s account.

4. Turkey vowed to expose the “naked truth” about the events
surrounding Jamal Khashoggi’s
death. Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan also cast doubt onto Saudi Arabia’s narrative
on the incident.

5. US
National Security Adviser John Bolton is in Moscow for
high-tension talks over plans to withdraw from a nuclear weapons
treaty. President
Donald Trump said Russia violated terms of the treaty,
though Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations.

6. Trump has no intention of de-escalating trade tensions with
China, according to Axios, with the president believing
instead that more time is required to make “Chinese leaders to
feel more pain from his tariffs.” According
to Axios,
one source told them that Trump “wants them to suffer more” from
tariffs.

7. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin dismissed concerns that
China’s weakest economic growth since the global financial crisis
could spill into other emerging markets and destabilize U.S.
financial markets. “I am not concerned about
that destabilizing our markets,” Mnuchin said in an interview
with Reuters in Jerusalem at the start of a Middle East
visit.

8. BlackRock is betting on the explosive growth of
exchange-traded funds, an asset class that has already propelled
the firm to become the world’s largest asset
manager. The ETF market, which includes $4.7
trillion worldwide in assets, could jump to $12 trillion in the
next five years, CEO Larry Fink said on the firm’s earnings call
last week.

9. Goldman Sachs has named veteran banker Todd Leland as its
investment banking head for Asia Pacific excluding Japan,
according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. The
move adds to leadership changes at the bank with CEO David
Solomon taking over this month. Leland, an American who joined
Goldman in 1992, will replace Andrea Vella and Kate Richdale who
were appointed co-heads of the unit in 2015.

10. The outlook for global growth in 2019 has dimmed for the
first time, according to Reuters polls of economists who said the
U.S.-China trade war and tightening financial conditions would
trigger the next downturn. At the start of
2018, optimism about a robust global economic outlook was almost
unanimous among respondents. But Reuters polls of more than 500
economists taken this month showed a downgrade to the outlook for
18 of 44 economies polled.