#China cut benchmark interest rates for the first time since July 2012 as leaders step up support for the world’s second-largest economy, sending global shares, #oil and metals prices higher. The one-year lending rate was reduced by 0.4 percentage point to 5.6 percent, while the one-year deposit rate was lowered by 0.25 percentage point to 2.75 percent, effective tomorrow, the People’s #Bank of China said on its website today. The reduction puts China on the side of the #European Central Bank and Bank of Japan in deploying fresh stimulus and contrasts with the Federal Reserve, which has stopped its quantitative easing program. Until today, the PBOC had focused on selective monetary easing and liquidity injections as #China heads for its slowest full-year growth since 1990. “Targeted relaxation wasn’t strong enough to boost the real economy so now they realized they have to relax policy overall,” said Xu Gao, chief economist with Everbright Securities Co. in Beijing, who formerly worked for the World Bank. “The economic reason for the rate cut is very strong.” The MSCI All-Country World Index advanced 0.6 percent at 1:01 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 0.4 percent to an all-time high. The gauge trimmed earlier gains of 0.9 percent as the price of oil pared a second advance. The Stoxx #Europe 600 Index rallied 2.1 percent to a two-month high. Copper climbed 1.4 percent
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 10:10:59 +0000