Asian stocks on the rise early Friday as investors continue to read interest-rate tea leaves

Investors are watching for what the Bank of Japan may say about its monetary policy as the central bank ends a two-day policy meeting, although dramatic changes are not expected.

“We expect the BOJ to stay on hold, but continue to emphasize the dovish bias,” Venkateswaran Lavanya at Mizuho Bank in Singapore said in a report, saying Japan’s “exit” from extreme monetary easing is bound to lag the Fed’s.

The Fed’s comments came Wednesday, and global markets had already initially reacted Thursday. But comments about the possibility of slowing the central bank’s bond-buying program are rippling through markets. Such support has been a key reason for the stock market’s resurgence to records.

The S&P 500 SPX, -0.04% slipped less than 0.1% to 4,221.86 after meandering from a 0.2% gain to a 0.7% loss. Most of the stocks in the index and across Wall Street were lower, but gains for Apple AAPL, +1.26%, Microsoft MSFT, +1.37% and a few other tech heavyweights helped offset the losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.62% dropped 0.6% to 33,823.45, while the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.87% rose 0.9%, to 14,161.35, lifted by the gains for tech and other high-growth stocks.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note TY00, -0.02% gave back nearly all of its spurt from a day before. It fell back to 1.51% from 1.57% late Wednesday.

The two-year TU00, yield, which tends to move more with expectations for Fed actions, was steadier. It rose to 0.22% from 0.21%.

The first action the Fed is likely to take would be a slowdown in its $120 billion of monthly bond purchases, which are helping to keep mortgages cheap, but the Fed’s chair said such a tapering is still likely “a ways away.”

Any easing up on the Fed’s aid for the economy would be a big change for markets, which have feasted on easy conditions after the central bank slashed short-term rates to zero and brought in other emergency programs.

While the economy still needs support, the recovery is proving to be strong enough that it does not need the same emergency measures taken at the beginning of the pandemic, said Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist and portfolio manager at Hightower.

“We are going to get a taper,” she said. “They need to, we do not need emergency stimulus at this point.”

The economy has begun to explode out of its coma as more widespread vaccinations help the world get closer to normal. At the same time, jumps in prices for raw materials are forcing companies across the economy to raise their own prices for customers, from fast food to used cars.

That’s fueling concerns over whether higher inflation will be temporary, as the Fed expects, or more long-lasting. The reality could be more mixed. The rise in commodity prices is likely tied to increases in demand as the economy recovers, but rising wages will likely be longer lasting as employers increase pay in order to attract workers, Link said.

Investors got a bit of disappointing economic news when the Labor Department said the number of Americans who filed for unemployment benefits last week rose slightly. The total of 412,000 workers filing for jobless benefits was worse than economists expected. If it proves to be a trend rather than an aberration, it could push the Fed to hold the line longer on its support for the economy.

Stocks of companies whose profits are most closely tied to the strength of the economy and to interest rates had some of the market’s sharpest losses.
Energy stocks in the S&P 500 fell 3.5% after the price of crude oil sagged.

Banks struggled after the drop in longer-term yields hurt prospects for the profits they can make from lending. Bank of America BAC, -4.37% fell 4.4%, and JPMorgan Chase lost JPM, -2.89% 2.9%.

Raw-material producers were also weak, with miner Newmont NEM, -6.98% down 7% after the price of gold GC00, +0.59% fell 4.7%. Gold tends to struggle when the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates.

On the winning side were big tech-oriented companies, which have dominated the stock market for years as they’ve continued to grow almost regardless of the economy’s strength. Amazon AMZN, +2.17% rose 2.2%, Microsoft gained 1.4% and Apple added 1.3%.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude CL00, -0.35% fell 38 cents to $70.66 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell $1.11 to $71.04 per barrel on Thursday. Brent crude BRN00, -0.49%, the international standard, lost 43 cents to $72.65 a barrel.

In currencies, the U.S. dollar USDJPY, -0.14% fell to 110.20 Japanese yen from 110.23 yen. The euro EURUSD, -0.08% rose to $1.1926 from $1.1908.