Markets mostly up as focus turns to US debt talks

AFP :
Asian and European markets mostly rose Monday as investors kept an eye on the talks to raise the US debt limit to avert a “catastrophic” default.
There has been some progress on reaching a deal but Democrats and Republicans remain at loggerheads, though President Joe Biden said he was confident the debt ceiling will be raised.
Republicans are demanding budget cuts in exchange for lifting the limit, while the White House has insisted for months that the nation’s credit should not be up for negotiation.
There is a general view among traders that the two sides will hammer out a deal, though some observers warn that the mere threat of a default was weighing on market sentiment.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office said there was a “significant risk” that the United States could default by June 15 if there is no deal.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told CNN on Sunday: “If Congress failed to raise the debt limit by the time of default, we would go into a recession and it’d be catastrophic.
“The United States of America has never defaulted on its debt — and we can’t.”
The uncertainty weighed on Wall Street, with all three main indexes ending in the red on Friday, but Asia enjoyed a broadly healthy start to the week, bouncing back from morning losses. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Seoul, Singapore and Mumbai rose though there were losses in Taipei, Manila and Jakarta.