Asian stocks fall mainly after Nasdaq sets a record ahead of the Fed meeting

Bangkok, Stocks in Asia fell on Tuesday after the Nasdaq set a record ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting later this week that could set the course for markets in the new year.

US futures fell and oil prices recovered early losses.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 0.2% to 39,364.68, helped by gains in technology stocks including SoftBank Group Corp., whose CEO Masayoshi Son joined newly elected President Donald Trump on Monday to announce plans by the Japanese tech and telecom giant to invest $100 billion in the US. projects for the next four years.

SoftBank’s Tokyo-listed shares rose 4.4%.

Chinese markets fell further, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index losing 0.1% to 19,773.60. The Shanghai Composite index lost 0.7% to 3,361.49.

“In China, recent disappointing data continues to put pressure on domestic policymakers to step up policy stimulus to boost domestic demand,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.3% to 2,456.81 as authorities pushed to summon ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol for questioning over his short-lived martial law decree last week. The country’s Constitutional Court began its first meeting on Yoon’s case on Monday to determine whether he should be removed from office or reinstated.

The Australian S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.8% to 8,314.00 points. Taiwan’s Taiex fell 0.1%, while Bangkok’s SET fell 0.8%.

On Monday, U.S. stock indexes fell in mixed trading.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 6,074.08 and the Nasdaq index climbed 1.2% to a record close of 20,173.89. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged, losing 0.3% to 43,717.48.

Broadcom rose 11.2% to help lead the S&P 500 for a second straight day after releasing an earnings report last week that beat analyst expectations on the groundswell of enthusiasm for its artificial intelligence offering.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce its final interest rate change for the year. There is widespread expectation that interest rates will be cut for the third time in a row, in an effort to boost the slowing labor market after inflation was pushed back almost all the way to the 2% target.

The question is how much more rates will be cut next year, and Fed officials will release forecasts for where they see the federal funds rate ending up in 2025, along with other economic indicators, once their meeting ends. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will also answer questions at a press conference after the meeting.

Expectations for a series of Fed rate cuts have been one of the main reasons why the S&P 500 has hit an all-time high 57 times so far this year and is on track for one of the best years of the millennium.

The economy has held up better than many feared and continues to grow even after the Fed raised interest rates to the highest rate in two decades in hopes of curbing inflation, which topped 9% two summers ago.

On Wall Street, MicroStrategy rose as much as 7% during the day as it continues to benefit from the rising price of bitcoin, which hit another all-time high of over $107,000 on Monday, according to CoinDesk. It was trading at $106,884 early Tuesday.

Bitcoin’s price has risen from around $44,000 at the start of the year, thanks to expectations that Trump will favor digital currencies.

The interest rate on government bonds remained relatively stable. The yield on the 10-year government bond fell on Monday from 4.40% at the end of Friday to 4.39% on Monday. The two-year interest rate, which is more in line with expectations for the Fed, fell from 4.25% to 4.24%.

In other trades early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude rose 6 cents to $70.77 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, rose 18 cents to $73.70 a barrel.

The US dollar fell from 154.14 yen to 154.07 Japanese yen. The euro fell from $1.0513 to $1.0509. AMS

This article was generated from an automated feed from a news agency without any changes to the text.