Key Points:
- Yen resumes weakening as focus turns to Bank of Japan policy
- Traders are weighing impact of Xi tightening his grip in China
US equity futures rallied and Asian shares looked set to rise on Monday after Treasury yields slipped from multiyear highs amid focus on when Federal Reserve rate hikes will peak.
Contracts for share benchmarks in Japan and Hong Kong gained and Australian shares opened higher after stocks on Wall Street had their best week since June.
Trading in major currencies was choppy, with the pound giving back much of a jump made as Boris Johnson pulled out of the race to lead the UK’s ruling Conservative Party, putting Rishi Sunak closer to becoming the next prime minister.
The yen resumed weakening as focus turned from intervention to support the currency to the Bank of Japan, which is expected to stick with ultra-loose monetary policy at its meeting later in the week.
More broadly across markets, investors are looking beyond the present state of aggressive monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve to the next phase, which may see a slowing or pause in interest-rate hikes. That’s providing support amid headwinds from the war in Ukraine to risks from China.
The S&P 500 jumped 2.4% Friday amid an increase in appetite for bullish US equity wagers following an equity rout that’s already erased $13 trillion in market value this year. Ten-year Treasury yields reversed an earlier surge Friday, closing down by one basis point at 4.22%. Yields opened lower in Australia on Monday, led by the policy-sensitive three-year maturity.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and his San Francisco counterpart Mary Daly made clear they expect the discussion at the November gathering to include debate on how high to raise rates and when to slow the pace of increases. They stressed the need to keep tightening for now.