Asian stocks mixed, dollar drifts before megacap earnings, jobs data

By Kevin Buckland

TOKYO (Reuters) -Asian stocks were broadly mixed in volatile trading on Tuesday as investors girded for three days of tech megacap earnings reports on Wall Street, kicking off with Google parent Alphabet later in the day.

The dollar drifted not far from a three-month high with one of the Federal Reserve’s preferred employment gauges – the JOLTS job openings report – due on Tuesday, ahead of highly anticipated monthly non-farm payrolls data on Friday. U.S. Treasury yields eased from three-month peaks.

The yen found its footing following Monday’s plunge to a three-month low as the coalition government’s drubbing in weekend elections clouded the outlook for Japanese fiscal and monetary policies. The Nikkei index recovered from a cautious start to build on the previous session’s gains.

The U.S. election has entered its final stretch, with opinion polls still too close to call a winner, despite some betting sites and financial markets leaning toward a win for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.

Crude was on the back foot following a plunge on Monday on signs the war in the Middle East would not widen, after Israel avoided targeting oil and nuclear facilities in a retaliatory strike on Iran at the weekend.

The Nikkei ended the day up 0.77%, building on its 1.82% rally in the previous session. It started the day down 0.21%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was 0.5% higher, paring earlier gains of as much as 1.6%. Mainland Chinese blue chips slipped 0.75%, reversing an early rise of 0.68%. Chinese investors are focused on a top leadership meeting next week for more details of Beijing’s stimulus measures.

U.S. S&P 500 futures were flat after the cash index gained 0.26% overnight.

“The conviction to take these markets higher, we just don’t have that,” said Tony Sycamore, a markets analyst at IG. “We’re in a very, very tricky period here. It just doesn’t make sense to be chasing risk at this time.”

The bulk of the “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap technology stocks that have driven Wall Street to all-time highs this year report financial results this week. Earnings from Meta Platforms and Microsoft are due on Wednesday, followed by Apple and Amazon on Thursday.

The dollar was little changed against a basket of six major peers, which includes the yen and euro. The dollar index stood at 104.29, after reaching 104.57 overnight, matching the high from Wednesday of last week, a level previously not seen since July 30.

Recent robust U.S. economic data, including evidence of a resilient job market, have seen bets pared back for easing this year by the Federal Reserve, boosting the dollar.

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The U.S. currency has also been buoyed by rising market expectations for an election win for Trump, whose tariff, tax and immigration policies are seen as inflationary, thus negative for bonds and positive for the dollar.

Ten-year U.S. Treasury yields eased to 4.2661% on Tuesday, after reaching the highest since July 11 at 4.3% overnight.

“We expect the narratives of a Trump win … and U.S. economic outperformance to continue to dominate financial markets, in turn supporting U.S. interest rates and the USD,” said Carol Kong, a currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The dollar slipped 0.23% to 152.92 yen, but that followed a rally to the highest since July 31 at 153.885 yen on Monday.

In Japan, a period of wrangling to secure a coalition is likely after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner Komeito lost their majority in parliament, in a scathing result that potentially means bigger fiscal spending and complicates the Bank of Japan’s push to normalise interest rates.

The head of the opposition Democratic Party for the People said on Tuesday that the central bank should avoid making big changes in its ultra-loose monetary policy now because real wage growth is still at a standstill.

The BOJ next decides policy on Thursday, with no change expected.

The euro held steady at $1.0811, and sterling edged 0.05% lower to $1.29655.

Gold rose 0.39% to $2,752.75 an ounce, pushing up towards the record high of $2,758.37 from last week.

Brent crude futures declined 0.18% to $71.29 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $67.25 a barrel, down 0.19%. Both contracts tumbled 6% on Monday, hitting their lowest since Oct. 1.

(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Editing by Jamie Freed)