Stock market today: Asian shares are mixed after Wall Street breaks losing streak
Jul 23, 2024, 12:32 AM | Updated: 9:34 pm
BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mixed Tuesday in Asia after U.S. stocks closed broadly higher, as Big Tech stocks took back some of their recent sharp declines.
U.S. futures edged lower and oil prices were little changed.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 closed nearly unchanged, at 39,594.39.
Chinese markets declined, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong down 0.9% to 17,471.79. The Shanghai Composite index shed 1.7% to 2,915.37.
China’s central bank cut two key interest rates by 10 basis points on Monday, moving to ease credit and pep up the economy, following a major policymaking meeting of the ruling Communist Party that focused on longer-term reforms.
The People’s Bank of China also reduced collateral required by its medium-term lending facility and also reduced the interest rate for its standing lending facility by 10 basis points to 2.7% for its seven-day loans and 3.05% for its one-month loans.
But the recent moves so far have not boosted markets in a mood for more ambitious short-term action to spur faster growth.
“Size matters. And obviously, a 10 (basis point) cut is not particularly inspiring. Certainly, nowhere in the vicinity of ‘big gun’ stimulus, which is arguably what the economy needs,” Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.4% to 2,774.29, while the S&P/ASX 200 jumped 0.5% to 7,971.10.
Taiwan’s Taiex surged 2.8% as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest maker of computer chips, gained 4.3%, rebounding from recent losses on renewed optimism over the promise of artificial intelligence.
In Bangkok, the SET fell 1%.
Reports on corporate profits and U.S. economic growth may hog the market’s spotlight this week. Analysts are expecting companies in the S&P 500 to deliver the strongest profit growth for the latest quarter since the end of 2021, according to FactSet.
Besides Alphabet and Tesla, dozens of other big U.S. companies will also report their latest quarterly results this upcoming week, including Coca-Cola, Ford and American Airlines.
On Monday, the S&P 500 rose 1.1% to 5,564.41, breaking a three-day losing streak. It was the first gain for the benchmark index since it set an all-time high on July 16.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% to 40,415.44, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.6% to 18,007.57.
The gains were broad, with more than three-quarters of the stocks in the S&P 500 closing higher, although tech stocks accounted for much of the rally.
Nvidia rose 4.8%, and other Big Tech stocks advanced. They had sputtered amid criticism they’d grown too expensive after rocketing so high and pushing Wall Street to records. Two of them, Alphabet and Tesla, will report on Tuesday how much profit they earned during the spring in a big test. Alphabet rose 2.3% and Tesla gained 5.1%.
Treasury yields mostly rose in the bond market after President Joe Biden said he won’t run for re-election. The move could cause the unwind of some of the market’s “Trump trade,” which took off after Biden’s weak performance in a debate last month raised expectations for a win by former President Donald Trump.
Some delays at airports continued Monday after massive disruptions from a global technology outage that appeared to have been largely resolved over the weekend.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack and that it had deployed a fix for a faulty update sent to computers running Microsoft Windows.
CrowdStrike’s stock fell another 13.5% Monday after taking an 11.1% hit on Friday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.26% from 4.24% late Friday. Shorter-term yields were relatively steady. The two-year yield was unchanged at 4.52%, where it was late Friday.
Other corners of the market that could have swung sharply on uncertainty about the November election after Biden withdrew from the race, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, were also mostly quiet.
The U.S. dollar was relatively steady, falling to 156.49 Japanese yen early Tuesday from 157.04 yen late Monday. The euro fell to $1.0878 from $1.0891.
In energy dealings, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 1 cent to $78.41 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international standard, gained 7 cents to $82.47 per barrel.
