Higher US yields hurt Asia equities; yen hits one-year low

TOKYO: A tick up in U.S. Treasury yields on Monday helped send the dollar to a fresh one-year high against the yen while scuppering an early tech-led equity rally.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields pushed to a one-week high of 4.668%, testing the top of its range since soft non-farm payroll figures at the start of the month stoked bets for earlier Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The dollar climbed to 151.78 yen for the first time since mid-October of last year, despite being stable against the euro and sterling.

Japan’s tech-heavy Nikkei gave up early gains of more than 1% to end the day almost flat.

Tech still outperformed to help Hong Kong’s Hang Seng keep its head above water, against the drag from a 1.2% slide in an index of property shares. Mainland Chinese blue chips slipped 0.24%.

U.S. equity futures also pointed 0.44% lower, following Friday’s 1.56% rally for the S&P 500.

Nomura Securities strategist Naka Matsuzawa said equities are likely close to a peak.

“Up until now the market has been taking bad economic news as good news, because that would mean a pause in Fed rate hikes,” he said.

“But now, the Treasury market has already priced in a pause, so there’s not much room for Treasury yields to fall further,” removing a support for the stock market, he added. “In short, I don’t think the stock market rally is going to continue.”

The week is packed with big risk events, from consumer inflation and retail sales figures from the United States on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, with Chinese retail sales also due Wednesday, following lacklustre sales growth at the annual Singles Day shopping festival over the weekend.

The marquee geopolitical event is also mid-week, with a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco.

Investors, however, paid little attention to a Moody’s announcement late on Friday that it had lowered its outlook on the U.S. credit rating to “negative” from “stable”.

Crude oil prices eased on Monday as demand worries trumped supply concerns, amid slowing growth in the United States and China.

Brent crude futures for January were down 71 cents, or 0.87%, at $80.72 a barrel, while the U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for December were at $76.49, down 68 cents, or 0.88%.

Both benchmarks gained nearly 2% on Friday as Iraq voiced support for oil cuts by OPEC+. – Reuters