Stock Market Today: Asian Stocks Fall Mostly Ahead of Central Bank Meetings

TOKYO – Asian stocks were mostly lower in cautious trading on Tuesday ahead of central bank meetings around the world.

The Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan are holding monetary policy meetings this week.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 reversed earlier losses to rise 0.2% in afternoon trading to 38,525.95. S of Australia&OP/ASX 200 fell 0.5% to 7,953.20. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1% to 2,738.19. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.3% to 17,014.17, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 0.4% to 2,879.30.

“Markets may be struggling to position central bank meetings this week,” Jing Yi Tan of Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.

In Japan, the government reported that the country’s unemployment rate in June stood at 2.5%, down from 2.6% the previous month, and marking the first improvement in five months.

US stock indexes came to a mixed finish on Monday, kicking off a week full of earnings reports from The most influential companies on Wall Street it is a Federal Reserve Meeting on interest rates.

YOU&OP 500 rose 0.1% to 5,463.54, snapping off its first consecutive weekly losses since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% to 40,539.93 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.1% to 17,370.20.

ON Semiconductor helped lead the market with an 11.5% jump after the supplier to the auto and other industries reported stronger spring earnings than analysts expected. McDonald’s rose 3.7% despite reporting profit and revenue in the last quarter which fell short of forecasts. Analysts said its performance in U.S. restaurants was not as bad as some investors had feared.

Oil and gas companies were some of the heaviest hitters in the market after the price of oil fell back to where it was two months ago. ConocoPhillips lost 1.6% and Exxon Mobil fell 1%, amid concerns about how much oil China’s faltering economy will burn.

Several of Wall Street’s biggest names are due to report earnings later this week: Microsoft on Tuesday, Meta Platforms on Wednesday and Apple and Amazon on Thursday. Its stock movements carry extra weight on Wall Street because they are among the market’s biggest by total value.

These Big Tech Stocks Boosted S&P500 for dozens of records this year, partly because of investors frenzy around artificial intelligence technology, but lost momentum this month due to criticism, became too expensive and as alternatives began to look more attractive. Last week, investors encountered earnings reports from Tesla It is Alphabet underwhelming, raising concerns that other stocks in the group known as the “Magnificent Seven” of Big Tech stocks might also be underwhelming.

Smaller stocks soared on expectations that the slowdown inflation will cause the Federal Reserve to soon begin cutting interest rates. But that pattern broke down a bit on Monday, with most Big Tech stocks rising while smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index fell 1.1%. The index still rose 9.2%, the market leader in the month so far.

The Fed will hold a policy meeting on interest rates this week, and an announcement will be made on Wednesday. Practically no one expects a change at this point, but the widespread expectation is that flexibility will begin at its next meeting, in September.

Treasury yields remained relatively stable in the bond market, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.17% from 4.19% on Friday. It reached 4.70% in April.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude lost 39 cents to $75.42 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 37 cents to $79.41.

In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 155.02 Japanese yen from 154.00 yen. The euro cost $1.0824, down from $1.0826.