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Asian stocks mostly fall ahead of central bank meetings
TOKYO (AP) — Asian stocks were mostly lower in cautious trading Tuesday ahead of central bank meetings around the world.
The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are holding monetary policy meetings this week.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index reversed earlier losses and rose 0.2% in afternoon trade to 38,525.95. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5% to 7,953.20. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1% to 2,738.19. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.3% to 17,014.17, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 0.4% to 2,879.30.
“Markets may be struggling to position this week’s central bank meetings,” Jing Yi Tan of Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
In Japan, the government reported that the country’s unemployment rate in June stood at 2.5%, down from 2.6% the previous month and marking the first improvement in five months.
U.S. stock indexes had a mixed finish on Monday to kick off a week full of earnings reports from The Most Influential Companies on Wall Street it is a Federal Reserve Meeting on interest rates.
The S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 5,463.54, snapping its first consecutive weekly losses since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% to 40,539.93, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.1% to 17,370.20.
ON Semiconductor helped lead the market with an 11.5% jump after the supplier to the auto industry and other industries reported stronger spring profit than analysts expected. McDonald’s rose 3.7% despite reporting a profit and revenue loss for its latest quarter. that fell short of forecastsAnalysts said its U.S. restaurant performance was not as bad as some investors had feared.
Oil and gas companies were some of the heaviest weights in the market after the price of oil fell back to where it was two months ago. ConocoPhillips lost 1.6%, and Exxon Mobil fell 1% amid concerns about how much crude China’s faltering economy will burn.
Several of Wall Street’s biggest names are due to report earnings later this week: Microsoft on Tuesday, Meta Platforms on Wednesday and Apple and Amazon on Thursday. Their stock moves carry extra weight on Wall Street because they are among the biggest in the market by total value.
These Big Tech stocks have driven the S&P 500 to dozens of records this year, in part because of investors frenzy around artificial intelligence technology, but they lost momentum this month amid criticism that they had become too expensive and alternatives began to look more attractive. Last week, investors were met with earnings reports from Tesla It is Alphabet disappointing, raising concerns that other stocks in what is known as the “Magnificent Seven” group of Big Tech stocks could also fail to impress.
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Smaller stocks increased with expectations that the slowdown inflation will prompt the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates soon. But that pattern unraveled somewhat on Monday, when most Big Tech stocks rose while smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index fell 1.1%. The index is still up a market-leading 9.2% for the month so far.
The Fed will hold a policy meeting on interest rates this week, with an announcement due on Wednesday. Virtually no one expects a change then, but the widespread expectation is that it will begin easing at its next meeting in September.
Treasury yields have held relatively steady across the bond market, with the 10-year Treasury yield falling to 4.17% from 4.19% on Friday. It was as high as 4.70% in April.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude lost 39 cents to $75.42 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 37 cents to $79.41.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 155.02 Japanese yen from 154.00 yen. The euro was at $1.0824, down from $1.0826.