(WS) World Summary: CHINA'S RATE HIKE STALLS OIL, EQUITIES FIRM.

(From RWE)

Sydney - Friday - October 29: (RWE Australian Business News) - The decision by the People's Bank Of China to raise interest rates for the first time in more than nine years, as an attempt to rein back an overheating economy, took investors by surprise.

Mordechai Abir, director of energy research at New York-based Burnham Securities, said, "The Chinese economy will slow and as a result they will need less oil," and by inference, less imported ore and metals.

Mining stocks in Europe and the US were sold off as a result.

Shares in alumina giant Alcoa fell almost 3 per cent, taking miners like Alcan, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold and Inco with it.

But the further drop in crude oil prices underpinned the ongoing rally on Wall Street, although uncertainty over the outcome of the upcoming US presidential election tempered market gains by the close.

Data released overnight by the US Labor Department reported the largest …