After Treasury yields retreated and investors weigh comments from central bank chiefs about tackling persistent price pressures, Asia's stock market is poised to muddle at the open Thursday.
Futures were steady in Japan and Australia and rose in Hong Kong. After the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 ended little changed in trading due to end-of-quarter portfolio rebalancing, US contracts were steady in Asia.
Treasuries advanced as traders increased their bets on a recession, halting the Federal Reserve's aggressive tightening campaign.
The dollar went up. Oil fell below $110 a barrel after a report showing that the US inventories fell due to an unseasonal slowdown in gasoline demand.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his counterparts in Europe and the UK warned that inflation is going to be longer lasting as they gathered at the European Central Bank's annual forum in Portugal.
Global stocks are about to close out of their worst quarter since March 2020 due to the belief that central banks misjudged inflation.
I wouldn't rush in to buy anything blindly right now, but I still think we are going to have some pains over the next couple of weeks and months as inflation starts to stabilize, Erin Browne, multi-asset strategies portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co., said on the Bloomberg Surveillance show.
The Fed Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said officials should not be complacent about increases in long-term inflation expectations and should act forcefully to curb price pressures. Mester later told CNBC that the Fed is just about at the beginning of raising rates and she wants to see the benchmark lending rate reach 3% to 3.5% this year and a little bit above 4% next year, even if it leads to a recession.
The most economic and effective policy for China is Covid Zero, according to President Xi Jinping. The nation loosened the quarantine rules earlier this week, giving markets a boost, but investors remain cautious about the stringent adherence to eradicating the virus.
This week s MLIV Pulse survey looked at the outlook for earnings and stock prices.
Some of the biggest moves in markets are:
The offshore currency was 6.7055 per dollar.
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