TOKYO (AP) — Asian stocks were mostly lower in cautious trading on Tuesday ahead of meetings of central banks around the world.
The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are holding monetary policy meetings this week.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei stock average was down 0.5% to 38,268.72 in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.9% to 7,915.10. South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.7% to 2,747.06. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 0.8% to 17,093.32 and the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.7% to 2,871.62.
“Markets may be struggling to make sense of central bank meetings this week,” said Jing Yi Tang of Mizuho Bank.
The Japanese government announced that the unemployment rate in June was 2.5%, down slightly from 2.6% the previous month, marking the first improvement in five months.
U.S. stock indexes were mixed on Monday following a packed week of corporate earnings reports. Wall Street’s most influential companies and Federal Reserve Board Meeting Regarding interest rates.
The S&P 500 recovered from its first weekly loss since April to rise 4.44 points, or 0.1%, to 5,463.54. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 49.41 points, or 0.1%, to 40,539.93 and the Nasdaq Composite added 12.32 points, or 0.1%, to 17,370.20.
ON Semiconductor led the market, rising 11.5% after the supplier to auto and other industries reported spring profits that beat analysts’ expectations. McDonald’s rose 3.7% even as it reported profits and sales for its latest quarter. Below expectationsAnalysts said the company’s performance at its U.S. restaurants wasn’t as poor as some investors had feared.
Those stocks helped offset losses in the market’s most heavily weighted oil and gas companies after crude prices slumped to two-month lows. ConocoPhillips fell 1.6 percent and Exxon Mobil shed 1 percent on worries about how much crude China’s shaky economy will burn.
Later this week, several of Wall Street’s biggest companies are scheduled to report earnings: Microsoft on Tuesday, Meta Platforms on Wednesday, Apple and Amazon on Thursday. These companies are the largest in the market by market capitalization, so their stock price movements will have a particularly strong impact on Wall Street.
These big tech stocks are The Artificial Intelligence Craze The technology has lost momentum this month after criticism that it was too expensive, and alternatives have started to look more attractive. Tesla and alphabet The disappointment has raised concerns that other stocks in the so-called “Magnificent Seven” of big technology companies may also disappoint.
“The days of AI hype are over,” say Bank of America strategists led by Savita Subramanian. “It’s time to show monetization.”
Even as the tech giants have weakened, the U.S. stock market has been buoyed by the strength of other sectors that have been hit by high interest rates aimed at tamping down inflation. Small Cap In particular, it surged on expectations of a further slowdown. inflation The Federal Reserve will likely start cutting interest rates soon.
That trend was broken a bit on Monday, with most of the big tech stocks rising while the smaller caps in the Russell 2000 index fell 1.1%. But the Russell 2000 is still up a market-leading 9.2% so far this month.
The Fed meets this week for its latest interest rate policy meeting, with an announcement due on Wednesday, and while few expect any policy changes at that point, there is widespread expectation that easing will begin at the next meeting in September.
In the Treasury market, bond yields remained relatively stable, with the 10-year Treasury yield falling to 4.17% from Friday’s close of 4.19%. It had risen to a high of 4.70% in April.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude fell 19 cents to $75.62 a barrel, while the international standard Brent crude lost 19 cents to $79.59.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose slightly to 154.05 yen from 154.00 yen, while the euro fell to 1.0816 dollars from 1.0826 dollars.
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AP Business Writer Stan Cho contributed to this report.
