\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \n \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LONDON, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Emerging stocks hit a 12-day high on Wednesday and debt spreads reached their narrowest in over a year as markets cheered a rating affirmation for Spain, while South African retailers helped the Johannesburg index to a record high for a third day in a row. Moody’s kept a Baa3 rating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-15660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}LONDON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Emerging stocks hit a 12-day high\non Wednesday and debt spreads reached their narrowest in over a\nyear as markets cheered a rating affirmation for Spain, while\nSouth African retailers helped the Johannesburg index to a\nrecord high for a third day in a row.\n Moody's kept a Baa3 rating on Tuesday, based on the\nassumption that Madrid will seek help in holding down its debt\ncosts. While the agency assigned a negative outlook, the\ndecision assuaged worries the rating would be cut to junk.\n \n Improved sentiment towards the euro zone is boosting demand\nfor riskier emerging assets.\n Benchmark emerging equities rose half a percent\nand emerging sovereign debt spreads tightened by 4 basis\npoints to their narrowest over U.S. Treasuries since July 2011.\n South African stocks hit record highs as retailers\nrose on expectations of strong growth, despite concerns over the\nrecent wave of strikes in the mining and other sectors.\n \n But the forint fell half a percent, retreating\nfrom recent seven-week highs, Hungarian stocks dropped 2\npercent and Hungarian government bond yields rose 20-25 bps\nafter the country's economy minister announced higher taxes on\nbanks to cut the budget deficit next year. \n The shekel hit a five-month high against the dollar,\nas Israel's parliament set a Jan. 22 date for a national\nelection. Opinion polls predict an easy win for Prime Minister\nBenjamin Netanyahu. \n \n\n (Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)<\/pre>\n