Global Markets: Asia shares subdued for central bank, data test

Reuters  |  SYDNEY 

By Wayne Cole

Spreadbetters pointed to a dour mood elsewhere, with London's FTSE futures off 0.7 percent and E-Minis for the down 0.3 percent.

Technology and led Japan's Nikkei down 0.7 percent, and tech also featured in South Korea's 0.1 percent decline.

MSCI's broadest index of shares outside eased 0.5 percent and Chinese blue chips by 0.7 percent.

The week features quarterly earnings from more than 140 companies, including Apple Inc.

Disappointing results from and soured the mood on the Nasdaq on Friday, though the and Dow still ended firmer for the week.

Analysts at cited relatively aggressive moves into "value" stocks - in particular banks - and away from shares leveraged to economic growth.

"Tech really began cracking on Tuesday before the floodgates opened on Friday," they wrote in a note.

"The rotation will likely continue, benefiting value categories at the expense of momentum/tech as rates are biased higher," they added. "Europe's higher weighting to banks/resource will help it vs the U.S."

The meets on Tuesday and Wednesday and is widely expected to stand pat while reaffirming the outlook for further gradual rate rises.

The market is almost fully priced for a hike in September and leaning towards a further move before year-end.

A policy meeting that ends on Tuesday has taken on greater importance amid talk it could tweak its massive asset-buying campaign.

Elias Haddad, a senior strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, doubted the BoJ would move just yet, but felt it may abandon the negative interest rate applied to accounts held by financial institutions at the

The BOJ could also modify its annual objective of accumulating 80 trillion yen ($720 billion) of bonds, as well as potentially lifting its target yield for 10-year JGBs. Those yields recorded the highest close since January 2016 last week.

"Any of these policy changes would be interpreted as a step towards less monetary policy accommodation, dragging USD/JPY lower," Haddad said.

Just the chance of such a shift has sent the yen higher in the last week or so, leaving the dollar around 111.13 yen from a peak of 113.18 earlier in the month.

Against a basket of currencies the dollar was hovering at 94.668, having repeatedly failed to clear resistance around 95.652 this month.

The has had problems of its own as the emphasised that rates would not be rising until the second half of next year.

On Monday, the was barely changed at $1.1660, corralled between support around $1.1570 and resistance at $1.1750.

In Asia, eyes were on China's yuan after it suffered the longest weekly losing streak since November 2015. It duly weakened further, slipping past 6.8400 per dollar for the first time since June last year.

In commodity markets, gained with U.S. crude supported by recent upbeat on the U.S.

U.S. crude added 24 cents to $68.93, while Brent rose 9 cents to $74.38 a barrel.

Spot gold eased 0.2 percent to $1,220.32.

($1 = 110.9000 yen)

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; additional reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Richard Borsuk and Sam Holmes)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Mon, July 30 2018. 11:45 IST