Asian stocks rise, dollar weak as US yields tick down

Beijing Stock Exchange kicks off trading · Reuters

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By Kevin Buckland

TOKYO (Reuters) -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.

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.

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%.

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.

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 the highest in a year at 107.07 on Thursday.