Europe Futures Track Wall Street Rise, Yen Falls: Markets Wrap

(Bloomberg) — European stock futures rose along with Asian stocks after tech gains boosted Wall Street. The Yen weakened as the Bank of Japan maintained its ultra-loose monetary policy settings.

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Gains for Euro Stoxx 50 futures indicate that the benchmark will post consecutive daily advances for the first time in two weeks.

Stocks advanced in Japan, Australia and China, even as Japanese banks fell after the BoJ decision. US futures were little changed after the S&P 500 rose 2% on Thursday, its best day since the first week of the year as investors cheered broadly positive earnings reports.

The yen fell as much as 0.9% after the Bank of Japan left its cap on 10-year bond yields at 0.5% and its short-term policy rate at minus 0.1% at the first meeting under new governor Kazuo Ueda, as most economists expected. The Bank of Japan also announced a policy review that could take up to a year and a half.

Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Mark Matthews, head of Asia research for Julius Baer, ​​said the Bank of Japan will adjust its yield curve control policy at its next meeting in June if not earlier. “The yen will become stronger against all other currencies, including the dollar.”

Treasuries in Asia steadied after falling on Thursday when US data showed a sudden increase in inflation pressure during the first quarter. The dollar rose against all of its G10 peers.

China banks

In Asia, investors prepared earnings reports from some of the largest Chinese lenders including Bank of China Ltd. and China Citic Bank Corp. and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.

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Chinese banks are “a macro proxy, so if China’s GDP is going to see a modest acceleration, banks’ earnings growth will probably have room to run as well,” Winnie Wu, China equity analyst at Bank of America Securities, said in an interview. with Bloomberg TV.

Thursday’s rally in US stocks reflected positive corporate reports from big tech companies including Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp., while Intel Corp. shares advanced in aftermarket trading after the results were announced late Thursday.

“We’re definitely seeing good earnings performance, but we’re also seeing quite a number of other companies slowing,” Leila Pence, president of Pence Wealth Management, told Bloomberg TV.

Read more: The US is in the ‘worst of both worlds’ with high inflation and slowing GDP

Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board, said the latest batch of US economic data — including a slowdown in US jobless claims — showed the kind of cognitive dissonance investors were facing.

“Normally when you have a recession, the job market collapses along with GDP, and we just don’t see that,” Peterson said. “It is possible that we will plunge into a recession, we may now start in the second quarter, but we really need to see the data.”

Elsewhere, oil is heading for a sixth consecutive monthly decline as slowdown fears in the US and Asia weigh on the outlook. Gold hasn’t changed much, while Bitcoin is down more than $30,000.

Here are some of the major moves in the markets:

Stores

• S&P 500 futures were little changed as of 2:48 pm Tokyo time. S&P 500 rose 2%

• Nasdaq 100 futures have changed little. The Nasdaq 100 rose 2.8%.

• Japan’s Topix rose 1.1%.

• Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3%

• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5%.

• The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.7%.

• Futures on the Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.5%.

currencies

• The Bloomberg Spot Dollar Index rose 0.2%.

• The euro fell 0.1 percent to $1.1014

• The Japanese yen fell 0.7 percent to 134.92 per dollar

• The offshore yuan rose 0.1 percent to 6.9219 per dollar

Digital currencies

• Bitcoin fell 0.3 percent to $29,558.48

• Ether hasn’t changed much at $1918.57

bonds

goods

This story was produced with help from Bloomberg Automation.

— with assistance from Vildana Hajric and Carly Wanna.

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