European stocks made a positive start on Wednesday.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.4% in early trade, with basic resources adding 1.2% to lead gains as most sectors and major bourses advanced.

Siemens Energy has secured 7.5 billion euros ($8.15 billion) in project-related state guarantees from the German government, hours before announcing a nearly 5 billion euro loss for its fiscal year.

The German economy ministry announced late on Tuesday that it had granted the backstop as part of a wider package of 15 billion euros in guarantee lines agreed with banks and other stakeholders, following talks with private lenders and the company’s largest shareholder, Siemens AG.

The company denied the fiscal guarantees constitute “state aid,” with Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch telling CNBC on Wednesday that there is no cash involved.

The business will “pay money for these back guarantees, so it is like an insurance package,” he stressed.

Read the full story here.

– Elliot Smith

Hong Kong-listed stocks of Chinese electric vehicle firms jumped in early afternoon trading.

Shares of BYD, Nio, Xpeng and Li Auto rose between 2.47% and 6.11%.

Markets in Asia rose across the board after upbeat economic data from China. A soft U.S. inflation reading also boosted hopes of the Federal Reserve nearing the end of its interest rate-hiking cycle.

Xpeng is set to report third-quarter results later in the day, with analysts expecting the EV firm to report revenue of 8.54 billion Chinese yuan ($1.63 billion) according to LSEG estimates. It is also expected to report a quarterly net loss of 2.90 billion Chinese yuan.

In the second quarter, the company reported a wider-than-expected loss as well as revenue of 5.06 billion Chinese yuan.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped 2.8% to its highest level in over one week, while the tech-focused Hang Seng Tech index surged over 3%.

The indexes gained the most among major Asia-Pacific stock markets.

Asia stocks opened higher, following upbeat sentiment overnight sparked by a soft U.S. inflation reading that boosted hopes of the Federal Reserve nearing the end of its interest rate-hiking cycle.

Also boosting sentiment, China reported better-than-expected retail sales and industrial data for October, on Wednesday.

China’s CSI 300 index rose 0.77% by late morning trading.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

China’s industrial output and retail sales grew at a faster-than-expected pace in October, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Industrial output increased 4.6% year-on -year in October, higher than 4.5% in September and above a Reuters poll of analysts expectations of 4.4%.

Retail sales grew by 7.6% last month from a year ago, above the 7% growth forecast by a Reuters poll.

The first week of October marked the final big public holiday for the year in China, known as Golden Week. Official data showed domestic tourism spending recovered to nearly 2019 levels, but that was partly due to more people staying within the country since overseas trips had yet to fully return to pre-pandemic levels.

China’s CSI 300 index was last up 0.82% in early trading.

Read the full story here.

— Shreyashi Sanyal, Evelyn Cheng

Japan’s economy shrank in the July-September period for the first time in four quarters, provisional government data showed Wednesday, amid slowing global demand and rising domestic inflation.

Provisional gross domestic product fell 2.1% in the third quarter compared to a year ago, while also recording a 0.5% decline from the previous quarter.

Economist surveyed by Reuters had expected the world’s third-largest economy to post an annualized 0.6% decline and a quarter-on-quarter 0.1% contraction in the July-September quarter.

Read the full story here.

— Clement Tan

An opportunity for fixed income investors has emerged in the high yield bond space, according to George Bory, chief investment strategist for fixed income at Allspring Global Investments.

“The short maturity part of the high yield market looks very attractive,” he told CNBC in a phone interview Tuesday. “We call it the B’s, but the higher yielding, shorter duration part of the market generates income of 7.5% and as high as 8%.”

In particular, Bory has been looking at the investment grade BBB-rated issues, as well as the BB and B cohort of the high yield bond market. He aims for an average maturity between 1 ½ and 2 years.

Longer-dated bonds have greater duration, which means their prices are more sensitive to changes in interest rates. He avoids CCC-rated bonds, which carry greater default risk.

“You’ve isolated the bond market to the most amount of income you can generate without taking a lot of duration risk,” said Bory. “This isn’t a risk-free investment, but you generate 8% income … That’s one of the biggest opportunities in the market.”

–Darla Mercado

Japan’s economy shrank in the July-September period for the first time in four quarters, provisional government data showed Wednesday, amid slowing global demand and rising domestic inflation.

Provisional gross domestic product fell 2.1% in the third quarter compared to a year ago, while also recording a 0.5% decline from the previous quarter.

Economist surveyed by Reuters had expected the world’s third-largest economy to post an annualized 0.6% decline and a quarter-on-quarter 0.1% contraction in the July-September quarter.

Read the full story here.

— Clement Tan

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s cryptocurrency crackdown yielded close to $5 billion in financial remedies, including penalties, for the fiscal year 2023.

The roughly $4.95 billion in remedies includes about $3.37 billion in disgorgement and prejudgment interest, plus $1.58 billion in civil penalties, according to a Tuesday announcement from the SEC.

The federal regulator said it filed 784 enforcement actions during the year, up 3% from the 2022 fiscal year.

The SEC’s enforcements addressed an array of activities in the crypto space: The agency filed charges against crypto exchanges Celsius and Kraken. Regulators also slapped charges on influencers who allegedly touted crypto assets without disclosing that they were paid to do so.

–Darla Mercado

Washington may be able to avoid a government shutdown by the upcoming Friday deadline, but that doesn’t mean Congress — or the markets — are quite in the clear. 

With several contentious issues still on the table,  such as border security and aid for Israel — economists and policy analysts on Wall Street believe the two-tier continuing resolution will just lengthen the process of reaching longer-term fiscal deals. 

“If Congress avoids a shutdown, it will likely be through yet another temporary extension. As we wrote recently, the longer the government operates under short-term extensions, the less likely it will be that Congress will reach a deal on full-year spending bills,” Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius wrote in an Oct. 25 note. 

The full story can be found here.

— Hakyung Kim

The House passed a funding measure late Tuesday, sending the bill to the Senate to stave off of a government shutdown.

The bill is a “laddered” continuing resolution. That means it will fund some parts of the government until Jan. 19 and others until Feb. 2. From here, the bill goes to the Senate, which is expected to pass the bill and send it to President Joe Biden for signing.

Lawmakers voted 336 in favor of the bill, with 95 against it.

Without this funding measure in place, the federal government is set to shut down at 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday.

Read more about the continuing resolution and its details here.

–Darla Mercado, Chelsey Cox

Tuesday’s muted inflation numbers instilled fresh optimism into the stock market, but JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon believes that investors may be getting ahead of themselves.

“Personally, I think people are overreacting to short-term numbers — and they should stop doing that ,” he told Bloomberg. “I think inflation is probably a little stickier than that [data] shows.”

Dimon added that while the Federal Reserve is pausing its rate-hiking cycle for now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be any more hikes in the future.

“But I still think you should prepare that they might have to do a little more…just as a risk management tool. And I’m afraid inflation may not go away that quickly,” he said.

— Lisa Kailai Han