Asian stocks were mixed on Wednesday under pressure from a rising U.S. dollar and the uncertainties over the U.S. election.
U.S. futures and oil prices fell due to escalating geopolitical tensions after Israel announced that an airstrike outside Beirut earlier this month killed a Hezbollah official who had been expected to succeed the group’s longtime leader after he died in an Israeli strike last month.
In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3% to 38,300.81 as the dollar rose against the Japanese yen.
Tokyo Metro Co.’s stock surged 43% during its trading debut on early Wednesday. The company raised 348.6 billion yen ($2.3 billion) in its initial public offering, making it Japan’s largest IPO since SoftBank Corp. went public in 2018.
Chinese markets rose for a second day after the central bank cut its one-year and five-year Loan Prime Rates on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.7% to 20,841.73, and the Shanghai Composite gained 0.8% to 3,311.87.
State media have reported that a state-backed think tank has proposed issuing 2 trillion yuan ($281 billion) in special government bonds to create a market stabilization fund aiming to further ease the hidden debt pressures and inject confidence into the market.
“Yet, despite the bold proposal, there’s a sense that Beijing remains in reactionary mode, playing catch-up rather than getting ahead of the game,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, said in a commentary.
Elsewhere, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was almost unchanged at 8,207.20. South Korea’s Kospi was 1.3% higher at 2,594.23.
Taiwan's Taiex slipped 0.8%, while the Sensex in India gained 0.2%.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 edged down less than 0.1% to 5,851.20. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped less than 0.1% to 42,924.89. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.2% to 18,573.13.
Stocks have slowed their record-breaking momentum this week under increasing pressure from rising Treasury yields in the bond market.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury held steady at 4.20%, where it was late Monday. That’s well above the 4.08% level it was at just on Friday. Higher yields for Treasurys can make investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks, which critics say already look too expensive.
Treasury yields have been climbing following a raft of reports showing the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected. That’s good news for Wall Street, because it bolsters hopes that the economy can escape from the worst inflation in generations without the painful recession that many had worried was inevitable.
“What appears to be unfolding before our eyes is a soft-landing scenario only the most optimistic dream of,” according to Gregory Daco, EY chief economist.
But it also is forcing traders on Wall Street to ratchet back expectations for how much the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates. The central bank has made the drastic shift to lowering interest rates in hopes of keeping the economy strong, but a more resilient-than-expected economy wouldn’t need as much help.
Traders are now largely expecting the Fed to cut its main interest rate by half a percentage point more through the end of the year, according to data from CME Group. A month ago, some of those same traders were betting on the federal funds rate ending the year as much as half a percentage point lower than that.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude shed 10 cents to $71.64 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 9 cents to $75.95 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 152.00 Japanese yen from 151.03 yen. The euro fell to $1.0802 from $1.0803.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.
