Asian shares mixed after wobbly day on Wall Street

By ELAINE KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed Tuesday after a wobbly day on Wall Street as markets cooled off following a rare winning week.

Benchmarks rose in Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney but fell in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Oil prices rose while U.S. futures were little changed.

Rising energy prices and Treasury bond yields were weighing on sentiment, and investors are awaiting remarks expected for midweek by central bank leaders including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde, analysts said.

Investors will get another update on U.S. economic growth on Wednesday when the Commerce Department releases a report on first-quarter gross domestic product.

U.S. consumer confidence data is also on the agenda in a week with few other major economic releases, leading some investors to adopt a “wait and see” stance, said Jun Rong Yeap of IG.

“For now, traders are keeping an eye on the U.S. economy and Federal Reserve policy. As a result, increasing positioning in risk assets like Asian equities, the debt market and even high-yielding foreign exchange has not shown any strong inflows recently,” Anderson Alves of ActivTrades said in a commentary.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.3% to 26,959.17 while the Kospi in Seoul also rose 0.3%, to 2,408.57. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.6% to 6,743.20.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.9% to 22,033.62 and the Shanghai Composite index was nearly unchanged at 3,379.94.

Shares fell in Taiwan and India but rose in Bangkok.

Oil prices extended gains after surging on Monday amid reports that producers in the Middle East were at or near maximum capacity, with little leeway to boost production.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil gained $1.22 to $110.79 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It jumped $1.95 to 109.57 on Monday.

Brent crude, the basis for pricing for international trading, rose $1.37 to $112.35.

On Monday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% to 3,900.11. The Dow dropped 0.2% to 31,438.26, and the Nasdaq slid 0.7% to 11,524.55.

Smaller company stocks bucked the broader market’s decline. The Russell 2000 rose 0.3% to 1,771.74.

Declines in technology and communication stocks, and in several big retailers and travel-related companies, weighed on the market, checking gains in energy stocks.

Stocks closed out last week with solid gains and the S&P 500 posted its best day in two years on Friday. Stocks rallied last week as pressure from rising Treasury yields let up somewhat and investors speculated the Federal Reserve may not have to be as aggressive about raising interest rates as earlier thought as it fights to control inflation.

Treasury yields rose again Monday.

Treasury yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which helps set mortgage rates, rose to 3.20% from 3.12% late Friday. It slipped to 3.18% early Tuesday.

Wall Street will have a few more reports this week that could provide more insight into inflation, economic growth and the Fed’s path ahead.

On Tuesday, business group The Conference Board will release its consumer confidence report for June. Spending and confidence held up well through most of the post-pandemic recovery, even as inflation rose. But record high gas prices and an overall tighter squeeze from inflation have been eating away at wallets and prompting many to shift or cut back spending.

Part of push behind inflation’s tighter squeeze was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. That sent energy prices soaring. U.S. crude oil prices are up more than 40% for the year. Prices for wheat and corn have also surged.

Group of Seven leaders have been finalizing a deal to seek a price cap on Russian oil, raise tariffs on Russian goods and impose other new sanctions.

Russia may have also defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, further alienating the country from the global financial system.

In other trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 135.32 Japanese yen from 135.45 yen late Monday. The euro weakened to $1.0579 from $1.0687.

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AP Business Writers Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga contributed.