Global Stocks Start Week With Losses -- 4th Update

Chinese stocks move lower

-- Samsung falls by most in a year

-- Commodity prices under pressure

Global stocks started the week with losses as declines in Chinese and South Korean equity markets rippled overseas.

The Stoxx Europe 600 edged down 0.3% in the early minutes of trading, with shares of private banking giant Julius Baer Group leading the index lower after the unexpected departure of its chief executive.

Commodity prices also came under pressure, hitting resource-sensitive stocks including oil companies and miners. Brent crude oil was last down 0.3% at $63.26 a barrel ahead of an OPEC meeting on Thursday, while copper futures fell 1.5% to $6,912 a ton.

Futures suggested the S&P 500 would inch down 0.1% from a record high.That came after sharp losses in South Korean and Chinese shares on Monday. China's market fell anew after Thursday's slump, while indexes in South Korea and Taiwan lagged behind following downgrades to their biggest companies.

The CSI 300, which consists of the biggest stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen, was down 1.3% Monday while the Shenzhen Composite fell 1.5% and the Shanghai Composite was off 0.9%.

Chinese equities also dropped sharply on Thursday when leading stock indexes there fell more than 2% before rebounding somewhat on Friday.

"It is quite clear that the People's Bank of China is trying to break the notion of an implicit guarantee" to all Chinese firms, said Xie Dongming, head of Greater China research at OCBC Bank.

He added that by raising funding costs for overleveraged and badly managed firms, the government is trying to move local markets toward global standards on pricing credit risks.

South Korea's Kospi slid 1.4% and Taiwan's Taiex dropped 1% Monday after Morgan Stanley downgraded their stock ratings for Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor, each their respective index's largest component by far.

Samsung Electronics ended down 5.1%, cutting the year's surge to 46%, while Taiwan Semiconductor shed 2.9%, reducing its advance to 31%. Both had their worst days in a year on Monday.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down 0.6%, with Tencent off 0.8%, while Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.2% after rising as much as 0.5% shortly after the open as the yen rose on safe haven demand.

As investors shed stocks, yields on 10-year German government bonds fell to 0.350% from 0.361%, signaling a modest rise in prices. Gold edged up 0.4% to $1,292 an ounce.

The start-of-week decline in stock markets followed late-week holidays in Japan and the U.S., and came ahead of major global economic releases around the world later this week.

"We expect a steady stream of positive growth data in Asia this week -- from Japan and South Korea's industrial production to Australia's capex and India's GDP," said Klaus Baader, head of research for Asia at Société Générale.

The U.S. Commerce Department also released inflation data for October later this week, while the Senate Banking Committee holds a confirmation hearing for Jerome Powell, the man nominated to serve as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Grace Zhu contributed to this article.

Write to Kenan Machado at kenan.machado@wsj.com and Riva Gold at riva.gold@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 27, 2017 04:06 ET (09:06 GMT)