Asia shares edge higher, dollar backtracks
Asian stock markets tried to steady on Wednesday amid hopes U.S. tariffs would not be as painful for the global economy as feared just a day ago, though Wall Street futures took a knock from a sharp drop in Alphabet shares as earnings disappointed.
Investors were also not entirely sure what to make of comments by President Donald Trump that the U.S. would like to take over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and develop it economically.
The dollar surrendered some of its recent gains as investors saw a little more scope for the Federal Reserve to ease policy this year, sparking a rally in Treasuries.
The mood was helped by Beijing's relatively restrained response to President Donald Trump's added 10% in tariffs, which covered just $14 billion of U.S. imports.
"The measures are fairly modest, at least relative to U.S. moves, and have clearly been calibrated to try to send a message to the U.S. without inflicting too much damage," said Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics.
"The risk is that China's retaliation proves too modest to exert any real pressure on the U.S. to reverse tariffs, but sufficiently defiant to trigger a further escalation."
Beijing supported sentiment on Wednesday by setting a firm fix for its yuan, countering concerns it might allow the currency to slide to offset the impact of tariffs on its exports. That saw Chinese blue chips return from holiday with a rise of 0.7%.
While many uncertainties remained, including Trump's threats of levies on Europe, markets seemed relieved things were not even worse.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.8%, while Japan's Nikkei edged up 0.3%. South Korea's main index bounced 1.2%.
EUROSTOXX 50 futures, FTSE futures and DAX futures were all down around 0.1% amid the lingering risk of U.S. taxes on trade.
Having bounced on Tuesday, Wall Street futures ran into selling when Alphabet earnings missed forecasts and its shares dived 7.7%, wiping $195 billion off its market capitalisation. [.N]
S&P 500 futures dipped 0.2% and Nasdaq futures lost 0.3% in response. Results out Wednesday include Uber, Ford, Qualcomm and Walt Disney.
The delays to tariffs on Canada and Mexico eased worries the Fed might be severely restricted in how far it could cut interest rates and prompted a bounce in fund futures.
Yields on two-year Treasuries were back at 4.226% and off a peak of 4.282% hit on Monday. [US/]
The pullback in yields coincided with a retreat in the dollar from its peaks, with the dollar index down at 108.060 from Monday's spike top of 109.880. [USD/]
The euro firmed to $1.0384, a remarkable round trip from the two-year trough of $1.0125 struck at the start of the week. Likewise, the dollar had recoiled to 1.4327 Canadian dollars from a 22-year high of 1.4792.
The dollar also slipped 0.5% on the Japanese yen to touch a seven-week low at 153.49, breaking support at 153.72.
In commodity markets, gold hit a fresh all-time high at $2,848 an ounce aided in part by the pullback in the dollar and yields. [GOL/]
Oil prices were initially hit by news of China's tariffs on its imports of U.S. oil, only to come off lows on reports Trump had restored his "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran, in a bid to drive Iranian oil exports to zero. [O/R]
Brent rose 5 cents to $725 a barrel, while U.S. crude added 17 cents to $72.87 per barrel.
