Reuters: World stocks, oil and emerging market currencies fell on Thursday as fading expectations for an imminent US interest rate hike following Federal Reserve meeting minutes stoked anxiety about the health of the global economy.

Shares in Asia hit a two-year low, German stocks extended losses in what is shaping up to be their worst month in over three years, and British stocks hit their lowest since January.

Pressure on emerging market currencies intensified as investors fretted over Chinese as well as US growth. Turkey’s lira hit a record low and Kazakhstan’s tenge plunged 23% after authorities abandoned its peg and let it float.

“Asian shares tumbled, pressured by lower oil prices and a slowdown in China ... (and) the latest Fed minutes raised concerns over the strength of the global economy, questioning whether rates will be raised next month.” said David David Papier at ETX Capital in London.

The FTSEuroFirst index of 300 leading European shares fell 0.5% and Germany’s DAX fell 0.6% to its lowest since January, putting it down more than 6% so far this month.

Britain’s FTSE 100 share index, which has a heavy weighting of resources and energy stocks, fell 0.5% to 6,375 points. It is also at a seven-month low.

In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 1.6% to a two-year low, marking the fifth consecutive day of losses in what is its longest losing streak this year.

Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.9%.

US futures pointed to a fall of around 0.2% at the open on Wall Street, following Wednesday’s losses of almost 1%.

Tenge fever

Fears that growth in China, which carried the global economy following the 2008 international financial crisis, is slowing over the long term are affecting riskier assets around the world.

Commodities and emerging markets were among the hardest-hit by fear of slowdown in Chinese demand, worries that were exacerbated by Wednesday’s Fed minutes that suggested policymakers are increasingly cautious on the US growth and inflation outlook.

US crude oil fell 0.6% to $40.55 a barrel after a fall of more than 4% on Wednesday, barely holding above its 6 1/2-year low of $40.40.

Brent crude futures also fell 0.6% to $46.88, edging near the six-year low of $45.19 touched in January.

Falls in oil and other commodity prices hit many resource-exporting emerging economies hard, and they have already suffered shocks from capital outflows as the prospect of higher U.S. interest rates sometime this year looms larger.

MSCI’s emerging market index set a four-year low, having fallen 22% from this year’s high hit in April and coming within a stone’s throw of its Oct 2011 trough.

“Markets are nervous of risks and investors are pulling funds out of emerging economies and resource exporters,” said Daisuke Uno, chief strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Bank.

In emerging market currencies, the Turkish lira briefly touched 3.0 per dollar as political uncertainty and conflict focused in the country’s southeast undermined investor sentiment.

The Kazakh tenge plunged to 257 per dollar from around 197 after the central bank scrapped its trading band in another sign of the “currency wars” spreading across emerging markets.

Minutes from last month’s Fed monetary policy meeting showed officials in broad agreement that the U.S. economy was nearing the point where interest rates should move higher.

But they also noted lagging inflation and a weak global economy posed too big a risk to commit to a rates “lift off”.

US Treasury yields fell and money market futures rolled back expectations of a rate rise in September.

The 10-year US Treasuries yielded 2.11%, having declined from an eight-month high of 2.50% in June.

The dollar also lost its edge against other major currencies, falling to a three-week low against the yen before recovering to 124.00 yen, while the euro rose to $1.1125.

US oil falls towards $40 on global glut

Reuters: US crude oil prices fell to almost $40 a barrel on Thursday, its lowest since the global financial crisis of 2009, as supplies rose in North America and the Middle East, filling stockpiles to record levels.

Oil has lost a third of its value since June on high US production, record crude pumping in the Middle East and concern about falling demand in Asian economies.

All the main oil futures contracts looked to be heading lower, PVM Oil Associates director and technical analyst Robin Bieber said.

“The trend is down and vicious,” Bieber said in a note to clients of the London brokerage.

US crude oil, also known as West Texas Intermediate or WTI CLc1, was down 45 cents at $40.35 a barrel by 0910 GMT, after hitting a new 6-1/2-year low of $40.23.

Brent crude futures LCOc1, the global benchmark oil price, were down 60 cents at $46.56 a barrel, still some way off their 2015 low of $45.19 traded in January.

US crude inventories rose 2.6 million barrels last week to 456.21 million barrels, the government’s Energy Information Administration said.

Markets had been expecting a stock draw and the news pushed WTI down more than 4% on Wednesday.

Stockpiles rose partly because a US refinery closed for repairs last week, but also because imports rose to their highest level since April.

Canada increased exports to the United States by more than 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) over the past week to 3.39 million bpd, an Energy Aspects research note said.

But US crude oil production has also fallen by over 250,000 bpd since the start of June.

“While this is a clear sign that low prices will lead to less production, it was not enough to convince people yesterday,” Commerzbank senior oil analyst Carsten Fritsch said.

OPEC continues to pump record levels of oil, adding to the global oil glut.

Saudi Arabia exported 7.365 million bpd in June, up from 6.935 million bpd in May, industry data showed.

Adding to oil’s bearish environment, China stocks fell more than 3% on Thursday as worries about the world’s second-largest economy persist.

Gold hits 5-week high on dimmed September rate hike hopes

Gold hit its highest in nearly five weeks on Thursday after meeting minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve suggested policymakers were in no hurry to raise interest rates.

Although agreeing that the economy was nearing a point where rates should move higher, Fed officials last month were worried that lagging inflation and a weak global economy posed risks too big to commit to a rate “lift-off”.

“There was a lot of discussion in the minutes about how to tighten policy and that shows that the central bank is moving toward it but there is some uncertainty about the date,” Macquarie analyst Matthew Turner said. “For gold, one would think that the direction is more important than the date.”

Spot gold hit a high of $1,141.75 an ounce, its highest since 17 July, and was up 0.4% at $1,138.50 as of 0951 GMT.

US gold for December delivery was up 0.9% to$1,137.90 an ounce.

Spot gold has recovered nearly 6% from a 5-1/2-year low of $1,077 hit in a late July rout, when investors cut their exposure on fears of further price declines.

It was on track for a second weekly gain, after snapping its longest retreat since 1999. Gold benefited last week from uncertainty posed by China’s surprise devaluation of its yuan currency.