Asian Stocks Retreat With US, European Futures:
- Treasury yields climb, with 2-year near the highest since Nov.
- Oil price climbs on hopes of large demand increase from China
A gauge of Asian stocks dropped along with US and European equity futures as investors weighed the prospect of central banks tightening policy more than previously expected to tame inflation.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid about 0.3% in mixed trading that saw Chinese and Japanese stocks swing between gains and losses while Australian shares were more firmly lower. Contracts for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 extended their losses, indicating further downward pressure for US stocks after declines last week.
The moves in China’s CSI 300 benchmark came after it posted its best one-day gain since November on Monday, when Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists said the nations equities could surge about a fifth from current levels this year.
The dollar ticked higher, advancing against peers in the Group-of-10 currency basket. Treasury yields advanced across tenors in Asia after trading was closed for a US holiday on Monday.
While current consensus is quite negative on the possibility of the US hitting a recession, the pricing in the Treasury market “has evolved in a way that implies less recession risk than it did a few months ago,” said Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs chief economist, on Bloomberg Television.
“A lot of the rate cuts that were priced in for later in the year have been taken out of the bond market,” he said. “So in that sense, I do think the forecasters are quite negative, but market pricing’s actually starting to move on a bit.”
Benchmark two-year yields on New Zealand government bonds rose Tuesday while Australian yields edged slightly higher. Economists expect the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to hike its policy rate by 50 basis points on Wednesday. The New Zealand dollar was slightly lower as the country assesses the damage of a destructive cyclone.
Source: Bloomberg.com