SINGAPORE- Asia’s stockmarkets were steady but fragile on Thursday, a day after their biggest drawdown in three months as investors weighed the risk of the Federal Reserve announcing a 100 basis point interest rate hike next week to tackle sticky inflation.
The Japanese yen loitered just above recent lows, riding a boost from the strongest hints yet of possible market intervention by Japanese authorities. The New Zealand dollar jumped a bit on better-than-expected growth data.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.4 percent and Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.3 percent.
“Equity markets are presently in no-man’s land,” said Sean Darby, global equity strategist at Jefferies in Hong Kong.
“Better macro news to support earnings is discounted as the need for further tightening to quash growth — while CPI prints are not declining fast enough,” he said.
“The best metaphor is that the Fed is not only driving the economy using a rear view mirror but is now being forced to press the ‘rate rise’ accelerator just as bond markets are discounting an overtightening.”
Fed funds futures, which were dumped along with stocks after Tuesday’s stubbornly hot US inflation reading, imply a 37 percent chance of a 100 basis point rate hike next week and have the benchmark US interest rate about 4.3 percent by February.
Treasuries were calm in Tokyo trade on Thursday, but the US yield curve is deeply inverted – often a signal of a looming recession – as investors believe that rate hikes through this year and next will take a bite out of future growth.
Two-year yields, which track near-term rate expectations, were steady at 3.7860 percent, up 22 basis points this week for a seventh straight weekly gain. The benchmark 10-year yield was at 3.4062 percent.
“(There are) two opposing forces for the 10-year note — the upward pressure from Fed hikes and downward pressure from a potential economic downturn in the future,” said NatWest Markets’ US rates strategist Jan Nevruzi.
“We are more firmly in the camp that more hikes today increase the odds for a deeper recession.” — Reuters
