US Stock Futures Rise, Currencies in Tight Ranges: Markets Wrap

US stock futures rose slightly and major currencies held to narrow ranges in a cautious start to trading Monday after Treasury yields surged last week on rate-hike bets and shares on Wall Street ended lower Friday.

(Bloomberg) — US stock futures rose slightly and major currencies held to narrow ranges in a cautious start to trading Monday after Treasury yields surged last week on rate-hike bets and shares on Wall Street ended lower Friday.

Contracts for Asian share benchmarks pointed to a mixed open, with Hong Kong down, Japan up and Australia marginally higher. As worries about the banking sector abate and inflation pressure persists in the US, investors have upped wagers for at least one more interest rate increase from Federal Reserve this year, which is rippling through global markets.

The S&P 500 fell 0.2% Friday, trimming its gain for the week to 0.8%, while The Nasdaq 100 managed to squeeze out a 0.1% gain over the five days, as policy-sensitive technology names like Microsoft Inc. and Apple Inc. dragged on the benchmark. Swaps traders upped bets for a rate increase by June and pricing suggests a quarter point hike has better than three-in-four odds for May.

Looking ahead to this week, investors are awaiting the release of the Fed’s Beige Book and commentary from officials including John Williams, Raphael Bostic, Loretta Mester and Lisa Cook. Markets were rattled last week after Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he favored more policy tightening in the central bank’s battle with inflation.

Much of the focus in Asia will be on China and the strength of its economic recovery. Figures on Tuesday are projected to show gross domestic product expanded 3.9% in the first quarter from a year earlier, well below the government’s target for full-year growth of around 5%. March data may show increases in industrial output, investment and retail sales.

The dollar traded with ranges of about 0.1% versus major peers early Monday. A gauge of greenback strength rose 0.4% last week.

Treasury yields rose, with the rate-sensitive two-year jumping to trade around 4.1%, a weekly high, after a measure of March retail sales showed core readings declined less than estimated and the comments from Fed officials.

Financials outperformed last week with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. leading the charge after earnings. Assurances about the sector’s health and an increase in deposits following the March failures of three smaller US lenders drove the big banks higher on Friday.

The sector will remain in the hot seat Monday when Charles Schwab Corp. and State Street Corp. report. Investors will be looking for signs of health from Schwab, which has plunged nearly 40% this year as rising rates drove a spike in unrealized losses at the brokerage. Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will report later in the week as will Netflix Inc. and Tesla Inc.

While recent data suggested runaway prices were moderating somewhat, a Friday report suggested Americans are pessimistic. Inflation expectations jumped in April with consumers seeing prices climbing 4.6% on an annual basis, up from 3.6% in March, according to a University of Michigan survey.

In commodities, crude logged its fourth week of gains amid signs of a tightening global market while gold slumped. Bitcoin edged higher, holding above the key $30,000 level which it broke through earlier in the week.

Some of the main moves in the market:

Stocks

S&P 500 futures rose 0.2% as of 7:31 a.m. Tokyo time. The S&P 500 fell 0.2% Friday
Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.1%. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2%
Hang Seng futures fell 0.6%
S&P/ASX 200 futures rose 0.2%
Nikkei 225 futures rose 0.5%

Currencies

The euro was little changed at $1.0991
The Japanese yen was little changed at 133.80 per dollar
The offshore yuan was little changed at 6.8685 per dollar
The Australian dollar was little changed at $0.6704

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin rose 0.1% to $30,392.4
Ether rose 0.1% to $2,125.66

Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced seven basis points to 3.51% on Friday

Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude was little changed

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Vildana Hajric and Ritika Gupta.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com