Asian stocks climb as traders eye Fed moves, Trump’s picks

November 19, 2024 (MLN): Asian stocks rose on Tuesday while U.S. bond yields and the dollar hung back from multi-month highs as traders awaited President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet selection and sought to gauge the outlook for Federal Reserve easing, as Reuters reported. 

Tech shares advanced, tracking Wall Street's recovery from last week's steep losses, although Nvidia's upcoming earnings on Wednesday limited the scope for big moves, it added. 

Markets have pared bets for a quarter-point interest-rate cut at the Fed's next meeting in December to less than 59%, down from close to 62% a day earlier, according to CME FedWatch.

Trump's mooted fiscal spending, higher tariffs and tighter immigration are seen as inflationary by analysts, potentially impeding Fed rate cuts, which are already being hampered by a run of resilient economic data.

Trump has begun making appointments, filling health and defence roles last week, but key positions for financial markets - Treasury secretary and trade representative- have yet to be announced.

Japan's Nikkei added 0.5% as of 0546 GMT, while Australia's equity benchmark jumped 0.8% and reached a record high. Taiwanese shares advanced 1.3%, it further added. 

Chinese markets were weak though, with investors mulling potential Trump tariffs and waiting on more details of stimulus from Beijing. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.1%, reversing earlier gains, and mainland blue chips dropped 1.2%.

U.S. S&P 500 futures pointed 0.1% higher, following a 0.4% advance overnight for the cash index, it noted. 

Pan-European STOXX 50 futures rose 0.3%.

MSCI's index of world stocks snapped a four-day losing streak on Monday with a 0.35% climb and were up 0.1% in the latest session.

Amid a lack of market-moving news, "the marginal driver of asset prices right now is how the incoming Trump administration will impact economic conditions, international trade and global geopolitics," said Kyle Rodda, senior financial markets analyst at Capital.com.

"Concurrently, the markets are trying to estimate how those policies will impact interest rate settings, especially the Fed, with the markets walking back the depth of rate cuts previously discounted into the curve."

U.S. Treasury yields extended overnight declines, with the two-year yield ticking down to 4.280% and the 10-year yield edging down to 4.408%.

That kept pressure on the dollar, which languished close to its overnight low versus major peers. The dollar index, which tracks the currency against a basket of six others, was little changed at 106.29, close to Monday's trough at 106.12. It reached its highest in a year at 107.07 on Thursday.

The dollar sagged 0.17% to 154.41 yen while firming slightly to $1.0584 per euro.

The yen was supported by comments from Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato, who reiterated on Tuesday that the government would "respond appropriately to excessive moves" in the yen exchange rate.

Bitcoin , which surged to a record high of $93,480 last week on bets for more favourable cryptocurrency regulation under Trump, ticked back towards that level on Tuesday, rising 0.5% to $91,801.

Safe-haven gold added 0.4% to $2,623.49, after jumping nearly 2% on Monday, its biggest one-day advance since mid-August, amid softness in the dollar and heightened concerns about the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In a significant reversal of Washington's policy, President Joe Biden's administration allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia, two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the decision said on Sunday.

The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia would respond to what it called a reckless decision by the Biden administration, having previously warned that such a decision would raise the risk of a confrontation with the U.S.-led NATO alliance.

The escalating tensions continued to push both crude oil benchmarks up on Tuesday, following gains of about $2 a barrel each in the previous session.

Brent crude futures added 7 cents to $73.37 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $69.20 a barrel, up 4 cents.

Crude was also buoyed by the shutdown of Norway's massive Johan Sverdrup oilfield due to a power outage.

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