China and Hong Kong stocks lead gains in Asia; Evergrande shares plunge

China halved its stamp duty on stock trades in order to “invigorate the capital market and boost investor confidence.”

The finance ministry said this will take effect on Monday. Stamp duties on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange stood at 0.1% before the change.

— Lim Hui Jie

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in his annual address in Jackson Hole, Wyoming early Friday that central bank policymakers “are attentive to signs that the economy may not be cooling as expected.”

On the one hand, faster-than-expected economic growth is good for corporate earnings, and means that Treasury yields have risen this summer for what investors would regard as good reasons.

On the other, yields have surged, pressuring not only growth stocks whose future earnings are discounted at the risk-free Treasury rate, but indebted companies that have to roll over their obligations at higher rates.

“So far this year, GDP (gross domestic product) growth has come in above expectations and above its longer-run trend, and recent readings on consumer spending have been especially robust,” Powell said in his speech. “In addition, after decelerating sharply over the past 18 months, the housing sector is showing signs of picking back up. Additional evidence of persistently above-trend growth could put further progress on inflation at risk and could warrant further tightening of monetary policy.”

— Scott Schnipper

Morgan Stanley named a raft of European stocks with strong balance sheets, lots of cash or high shareholder returns.

The bank said the latest quarterly results showed a slowdown in revenue, earnings and cash flow “as companies brace for higher interest rates and a less certain macro environment,” but it identified several that appear to be bucking the trend in a research note seen by CNBC on Wednesday.

The bank analyzed more than 400 companies that trade on the MSCI Europe index to create several stock screens.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read about 20 of them here.

— Lucy Handley

Worries about China’s economy have depressed market sentiment.

Chinese internet tech companies Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu have reported solid quarterly earnings this month with little to show for it in stock performance..

But Gavekal’s CEO and founding partner Louis-Vincent Gave points out that key parts of the market point to a more moderate picture.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said Friday the central bank should stick to its goal to bring inflation down to 2%.

The question of whether the Fed needs to come all the way to its target, because of the risks of further tightening, has come up periodically. Earlier Friday, Chair Jerome Powell reaffirmed the commitment to 2%, and Goolsbee backed that up in an interview with CNBC’s Steve Liesman at the Fed’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming, symposium.

“I’m uncomfortable with declaring victory when it’s clearly not victory,” Goolsbee said. “We stated before we got into this what the target was going to be. I just don’t feel like you can change your inflation target until you hit it that.”

Generally considered a more dovish member of the Federal Open Market Committee, Goolsbee did not commit to a policy position. But he said that if positive inflation data continues, “Our argument is going to revolve around, well, how long should we keep rates at the levels they are, rather than how much higher should the rates go?”

—Jeff Cox

Cleveland Federal Reserve President Loretta Mester said Friday she still thinks additional interest rate hikes will be needed to control inflation.

“We don’t want to be satisfied, because inflation remains too high, and we need to see more evidence to be assured that it’s coming down in a sustainable way and in a timely way,” Mester told CNBC’s Steve Liesman during an interview at the Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium.

A nonvoting member of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, Mester has been one of the more hawkish Fed officials, meaning she prefers tighter policy and higher rates, at least as long as inflation holds above the central bank’s 2% target. In June, she penciled in two rate hikes this, one…