Asian stocks falter on mixed data
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Singapore/New York — Asia’s stock markets bounced on Friday after Wall Street’s lead, but were set for their softest week in about a month as investors grapple with tepid economic data and lofty valuations after a huge rally that has wiped out coronavirus losses.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6% on Friday, though it is it poised to snap a four-week winning streak with a small weekly loss.
Japan’s Nikkei edged up 0.3% but was headed for a 1.5% weekly drop, while a bond market sell-off has also moderated in recent days as caution and summertime lassitude weighs on the mood after the S&P 500 touched another record intraday peak.
Another surge in tech stocks took the Nasdaq to a new all-time closing high.
“It’s always going to be a little harder, once that’s happened, to figure out where things are going,” said ING’s head of Asia 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 exuberance that has driven world stocks up 50% from March troughs.
“The news is just too mixed at the moment rather than outright catastrophically, apocalyptically bad. And so [investors are] going to keep on cautiously adding and things will carry on going up, and it can go on a long time like that.”
S&P 500 futures rose 0.2%, FTSE futures were steady and European futures were up 0.3%.
Overnight, clouds returned to the US labour market outlook, with weekly jobless claims back over a million to put the total number of Americans on unemployment benefits at 28-million.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s business index also missed expectations and together the weak readings pushed down nominal US yields and dragged on the dollar. Benchmark US 10-year debt yields were last steady at 0.6558%.
Investors are looking ahead to purchasing managers’ index surveys across Europe, Britain and the US — where steady, slightly positive, readings are expected — for the next broad gauge of the recovery’s progress.
Japan’s factory activity fell in August for a 16th month, a private business survey showed, casting doubt over manufacturers’ hopes for a rapid recovery.
Dollar blues
In currency markets, the US dollar seems unable to shake downward pressure.
A bounce in the wake of the release of Federal Reserve minutes that fell short of ...
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6% on Friday, though it is it poised to snap a four-week winning streak with a small weekly loss.
Japan’s Nikkei edged up 0.3% but was headed for a 1.5% weekly drop, while a bond market sell-off has also moderated in recent days as caution and summertime lassitude weighs on the mood after the S&P 500 touched another record intraday peak.
Another surge in tech stocks took the Nasdaq to a new all-time closing high.
“It’s always going to be a little harder, once that’s happened, to figure out where things are going,” said ING’s head of Asia 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 exuberance that has driven world stocks up 50% from March troughs.
“The news is just too mixed at the moment rather than outright catastrophically, apocalyptically bad. And so [investors are] going to keep on cautiously adding and things will carry on going up, and it can go on a long time like that.”
S&P 500 futures rose 0.2%, FTSE futures were steady and European futures were up 0.3%.
Overnight, clouds returned to the US labour market outlook, with weekly jobless claims back over a million to put the total number of Americans on unemployment benefits at 28-million.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s business index also missed expectations and together the weak readings pushed down nominal US yields and dragged on the dollar. Benchmark US 10-year debt yields were last steady at 0.6558%.
Investors are looking ahead to purchasing managers’ index surveys across Europe, Britain and the US — where steady, slightly positive, readings are expected — for the next broad gauge of the recovery’s progress.
Japan’s factory activity fell in August for a 16th month, a private business survey showed, casting doubt over manufacturers’ hopes for a rapid recovery.
Dollar blues
In currency markets, the US dollar seems unable to shake downward pressure.
A bounce in the wake of the release of Federal Reserve minutes that fell short of ...
