MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.5% to reach its highest since March 2018, extending a 2.8% gain last week, Reuters reported.

Chinese blue chips firmed 0.7% to reach levels not seen since mid-2015. Surveys showed Chinese manufacturing activity edged back a tick to 51.0 in July, but services jumping a full point to 55.2 in a hopeful sign of reviving consumer demand.

E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 ESc1 climbed another 0.5%, while EUROSTOXX 50 futures STXEc1 added 1%.

Tokyo’s Nikkei .N225 rallied 1.9% aided by news Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway had bought more than 5% stakes in each of the five leading Japanese trading companies.

The Nikkei had dipped on Friday after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s resignation stirred doubts about future fiscal and monetary stimulus policies.

Those concerns were eased somewhat by news Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, and a close ally of Abe, would join the race to succeed his boss. A slimmed-down leadership contest is likely around Sept. 13 to 15.

Attention was now on a host of Federal Reserve officials that are set to speak this week, kicking off with Vice Chair Richard Clarida as they put more flesh on the bank’s new policy framework.

US Fed Chair Jerome Powell boosted stock markets last week by committing to keep inflation at 2% on average, allowing prices to run hotter to balance periods when they undershot.

The risk of higher inflation in the future, assuming the Fed can get it there, was enough to push up longer-term Treasury yields and sharply steepen the yield curve.

Yields on 30-year bonds US30YT=RR jumped almost 16 basis points last week and were last at 1.52%, 139 basis points above the two-year yield. The spread was now approaching the June gap of 146 basis points which was the largest since late 2017.

That shift was of little benefit to the US dollar given the prospect of short rates staying super-low for longer, and the currency fell broadly.

Early Monday, the dollar index was off at 92.341 =USD and just a whisker above the recent two-year low of 92.127. The euro stood at $1.1902 EUR=, having climbed 0.9% last week.

Marshall Gittler, head of investment research at BDSwiss Group, noted speculators had already built up record levels of long positions in the euro which could work to limit further gains.

“A truly crowded trade that will take more news to push higher,” he argued.

The dollar did steady a little on the yen at 105.55 JPY=, after dropping 1.1% on Friday before finding support in the 105.10/20 zone.

In commodity markets, the weakness in the dollar helped underpin gold at $1,969 an ounce.

Oil prices steadied, having dipped on Friday after Hurricane Laura passed the heart of the US oil industry without causing any widespread damage.

Brent crude futures rose 26 cents to $46.07 a barrel, while US crude CLc1 gained 13 cents to $43.10.

IRNA reported that government shares in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and Bandar-Abbas refineries will be offered through this EFT, at the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), which is Iran’s main stock exchange.

The offering of the second EFT had been postponed several times due to technical problems, however, in late June, Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Farhad Dejpasand announced August 26 as the date for the offering of the second EFT.

The offering of this EFT comes as the value of shares offered via the first EFT has significantly increased.

On May 2, the TSE listed the first exchange-traded fund from a series of three EFTs, through which shares of some state-owned organizations and companies are planned to be offered.

In mid-June, the finance and economic affairs minister announced that the value of shares that are offered by the first exchange-traded fund had doubled.

Referring to the offering of the shares via the first ETF, Dejpasand said, “The offering was our first experience in this field. About 3.6 million persons purchased the units of shares offered by the first fund.”

An ETF is an investment fund traded on stock exchanges, much like stocks. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, commodities, or bonds and generally operates with an arbitrage mechanism designed to keep its trading close to its net asset value, although deviations can occasionally occur.

As described by Investopedia, ETFs can contain many types of investments, including stocks, commodities, bonds, or a mixture of investment types. An exchange-traded fund is a marketable security, meaning it has an associated price that allows it to be easily bought and sold.

The shares to be offered via the above-mentioned Iranian ETFs belong to those governmental bodies defined in Iran’s privatization program, a comprehensive plan seriously followed up by the government to downsize and reduce its role in the economy.

The first ETF, established by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, comprises government shares in three banks, including Bank Mellat, Tejarat Bank, and Bank Saderat Iran, as well as the shares of two insurance companies of Iranian Reinsurance Company and Alborz Company.

The government has a 17 percent stake in Bank Mellat, a 17 percent stake in Tejarat Bank, and an 18 percent stake in Bank Saderat Iran.

A total of 289,904 tons of various products worth about $713.7 million were traded on IME’s domestic and export metal and mineral trading hall, according to ime.co.ir.

Among the traded products were 283,462 tons of steel, 520 tons of copper, 5,500 tons of aluminum, 410 tons of zinc and 12 tons of precious metal concentrates, as well as 21kg of gold bullion.

In addition, 327,375 tons of various commodities, valued at $510.1 million, were traded on IME’s domestic and export oil and petrochemical trading halls.

Among other traded items were 89,435 tons of bitumen, 57,347 tons of polymer products, 29,992 tons of chemical products, 1,320 tons of insulation, 1,166 tons of base oil, as well as 315 tons of sulfur.

The IME was set up on September 20, 2007 in accordance with Article 95 of the new law of Securities Market of the Islamic Republic of Iran following the merger of agricultural and metal stock exchanges of Tehran.

The merger marked a new chapter in Iran’s capital market providing many trading opportunities for customers both in the country and abroad.

The IME currently offers various services, including serving as the first market providing access to the initial offering of the listed commodities in the IME, price discovery and price-making for Iran’s over-the-counter (OTC) trade, secondary markets, and end-users and providing a venue for government sales and purchases as well as a trading platform.