NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- China's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) economic-stimulus plan may have lifted sentiment toward global growth, commodities and related stocks, but on Monday some market strategists were quick to identify potential losers from the plan, starting with U.S. consumers and Treasury debt.
"News of China's massive economic stimulus plan has helped markets worldwide, but for the U.S. the impact will be reduced by a number of important factors," said Tony Crescenzi, market strategist at Miller Tabak.
"For starters, China must of course finance its plan, which could mean it will have to either sell its holdings of U.S. Treasury and agency securities or slow its rate of accumulation in these securities," Crescenzi wrote in a note.
China holds roughly $1 trillion of U.S. securities, including $541 billion of U.S. Treasurys and $200 billion in agency securities, according to Miller Tabak.
Massive selling of those securities, at a time when the U.S. government is already expected to issue large amounts of debt to finance its own economic stimulus measures, could further raise borrowing costs, such as mortgage rates, which are benchmarked to bond yields.
On Monday, however, bonds rallied, sending yields lower, as U.S. stocks reversed earlier gains and the government successfully sold $25 billion in three-year notes.
See Bonds. Similarly, the dollar initially sank, as the stimulus package raised investors' risk appetite. In recent weeks, the greenback has benefited from risk aversion. But the dollar pared losses as U.S. equities erased gains.
See Currencies Early winners
Beijing unveiled on Sunday what it described as a "massive" economic stimulus package in an effort to reverse slowing economic growth in the world's most populous country.
See full story. Led by miners and other commodities-related stocks, Asian and European markets rallied after Beijing unveiled the package, which is heavily focused on infrastructure spending.
"While unlikely to have an immediate effect, this is clearly to be positive for sentiment and, in time, commodity demand," said analysts at Numis Securities.
Crude oil futures first surged over 7% before settling more than 2% higher, and corn futures also gained nearly 2%.
See Futures Movers. Funds from the stimulus package will be spent in 10 major areas that include low-income housing, rural infrastructure, water, electricity, transportation and improvements in the environment.
The report said spending will also include "rebuilding from several disasters," most notably the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province.
Credit Suisse analysts said that accelerated infrastructure spending in China will benefit European steelmakers, especially early-cycle firms such as Luxemburg-based ArcelorMittal
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MT) the world's largest steelmaker, which gained nearly 4%.
Among U.S. steelmakers, United States Steel Corp.
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X) and Nucor Corp.
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NUE) also advanced, with each gaining about 1%.
And among other miners, Newmont Mining
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NEM) gained 5.6%, Alcoa
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AA) rose 5.3% and Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold
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FCX) rose 1.4%.
While U.S. stocks gave up early gains, Canadian shares, heavily represented by energy producers and miners, finished higher, with the Toronto Stock Exchange rising nearly 1%.
See Canadian Shares. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
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$INDU) finished 73 points, or 0.8%, lower at 8,870, losing early steam that led the blue chip average to a high of 9,159.
Consumer-discretionary stocks were the second-worst performers, with the sector losing 3.9% on the S&P 500 index
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$SPX) .
With the U.S. and other major economies already experiencing a major economic slowdown, a rebound in commodities prices wouldn't be a welcome development for consumers, Crescenzi noted.
Multinational firms with the S&P's industrials sector, however, were the second best performing, falling only 0.5%, while the energy sector rose 1.3%.
"The main positive for the U.S. [from the plan] will be the business generated by U.S. multinational companies with a presence in China," Miller Tabak's Crescenzi said.
"It is difficult to see how China's stimulus plan will translate into anything meaningful with respect to U.S. exports to China, especially since the stimulus is geared toward infrastructure," he said.
Emerging markets
The scope of the stimulus plan also led some analysts to worry more about the global economy.
"China has gone from having to slow their economy to having to boost it," said Phil Flynn, a vice president at Alaron Trading. "The market is still trying to determine the extent of the global economic downturn."
Similarly, emerging markets analysts at RBC Dominion believe that the Chinese measures disprove the theory that China and Asia could decouple from other major economies around the world -- and be immune from a global slowdown.
"We have our doubts that the impact of the package will be felt in time to prevent a further weakening in Chinese growth in the near-term," they wrote in a note.
Infrastructure spending takes longer to boost growth than direct payments to consumers, the RBC analysts said, and this means Chinese growth expectations could further be downgraded over the coming year.
"We are not convinced that China will support global growth to the extent most expect," they said.
"This could further dent already rapidly waning investor euphoria towards [leading emerging markets, such as Brazil, Russia and India], negatively impacting other emerging markets via the growth, commodity price and investment flow channels."
Nick Godt is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York.
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