FINANCIAL MARKET REVIEW FOR NOVEMBER 24, 2017 In the last trading session of this week, Asian shares hovered below their 10-year peak on Friday while mainland Chinese shares dropped to three-month lows after big falls the previous day on concerns about fresh government steps to curb financial risks and rise in Chinese bond yields. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up 0.2 percent, as Hong Kong shares .HSI bucked the softness in the mainland shares to gain 0.6 percent. The MSCI index hovered still just 0.3 percent below its 10-year peak hit earlier this week and is on course to post a weekly gain of 1.4 percent. Japan's Nikkei .N225 ended up 0.1 percent after a market holiday on Thursday while U.S. stock futures ESc1 were little changed after shortened trading on Thursday. The CSI300 index .CSI300 fell as much as 0.9 percent to a three-month low in choppy trade after a 3.0 percent fall - its biggest in almost a year-and-a-half - on Thursday, as a sell-off in domestic bonds that has been underway since last month gnawed away at investor sentiment. Earlier this month Chinese stocks had risen almost 15 percent from their lows hit in May, and analysts said some investors were selling to lock in profits. In the currency market, the U.S. dollar remained under pressure after the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting highlighted concern among some of the board members over persistently low inflation. The euro traded at $1.1846, near its one-month high of $1.1862 set on Nov. 15 and on track to mark its third consecutive week of gains despite failure of coalition talks in Germany earlier this week. The leader of country’s Social Democrats is coming under growing pressure to drop his opposition to a new “grand coalition” with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, with senior politicians arguing the party had a duty to promote stability. The dollar fell to a two-month low of 111.07 yen on Thursday and last traded at 111.52 yen A weaker dollar saw the British pound staying near a six-week high against the dollar ahead of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s visit to Brussels later in the day for talk on Brexit. Finally in the commodity market, U.S. crude futures hit a two-year high on the shutdown of Keystone pipeline, a major crude pipeline from Canada to the United States. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $58.42 a barrel, up 35 cents, or 0.6 percent from their last settlement. They reached a high of $58.58 a barrel early on Friday, the highest level since July 1, 2015.
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