SINGAPORE / NEW YORK (Reuters) – Asia’s stock markets tied after Wall Street’s lead on Friday, but were set for their softest week in about a month as investors wrestled with sluggish economic data and airy ratings following a huge rally coronavirus loss.
PHILO PHOTO: A man wearing a face mask is seen inside the Shanghai Stock Exchange building as the country is hit by a new outbreak of coronavirus, at the Pudong Financial District in Shanghai, China February 28, 2020. REUTERS / Aly Song
MSCI’s broadest index of shares in Asia-Pacific outside Japan rose 0.6% on Friday, although it is poised to cut a four-week winning streak with a small weekly loss.
Japan’s Nikkei grew 0.3%, but was heading for a 1.5% drop per week, while a bond market has also moderated in recent days as caution and charity in the summer rise the mood weighs in after the S&P 500 picks up another intraday recording.
Another rise in tech stocks took the Nasdaq high after a new full close. [.N]
“It’s always going to be harder to figure out where things are going,” said ING’s head of Asian research, Rob Carnell of the US stock market.
In the absence of a disaster, he said, upward drift is probably the most likely direction, though perhaps with less conviction than the charity that boosted world shares by 50% from March bands in March.
‘The news at the moment is just too mixed instead of catastrophic, apocalyptic bad. And so (investors) will proceed cautiously and things will continue – and it can take so long. ”
S&P 500 futures rose 0.2%, FTSE futures were stable and European futures were up 0.3%.
During the day, clouds returned to the U.S. labor market outlook, with weekly unemployment claims exceeding one million to put the total number of Americans on unemployment benefits at 28 million.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s business index also lost expectations and together the weak readings slump down U.S. nominal earnings and dragged down the dollar. Benchmark US 10-year debt yield was last stable at 0.6558%.
Investors are looking forward to the acquisition of index surveys from executives across Europe, Britain and the United States – where stable, slightly positive, readings are expected – for the next broad-scale recovery recovery.
Japan’s manufacturing activity fell for a 16th month in August, a private business survey revealed, and doubts about manufacturers’ hopes for a speedy recovery.
DOLLAR BLUES
In currency markets, the US dollar does not seem to be under pressure.
A bounce in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s minute release that fell short of the market’s low expectations went down pretty quickly and it looked like a ninth consecutive weekly loss against a course of currency. [FRX/]
Sterling reversed loss against the dollar last night to sit at $ 1.3122 and the risk-sensitive Australian dollar waited again above $ 0.72. The euro was stable at $ 1.1864.
Currency traders will be increasingly focused on an address by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell next Thursday in case he reveals all the details of an expected shift in policy conception – especially around inflation – that were absent in minutes.
The Japanese yen inched to 105.67 after an inflation-miss supported real yields. The Thai baht follows its worst week in a month as investors begin to worry about political unrest.
Elsewhere, and perhaps pointing to the low bar for impressed traders, markets interpreted the lack of a US rebuff to a Chinese pressure for trading soon as a positive sign and the yuan hit a seven-month high of 6.8935. [CNY/]
In commodity markets, the outlook for production contests had oil prices heading for a third straight weekly gain. Brent crude futures were last up 0.4% at $ 45.06 per barrel and U.S. crude futures rose 0.2% to $ 42.90 per barrel.
Gold was stable at $ 1,947.66 an ounce.
Report by Tom Westbrook in Singapore and Chibuike Oguh in New York; Edited by Cynthia Osterman and Kim Coghill
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