Stocks Mixed in Listless Asia Session; Yuan Dips: Markets Wrap

Bloomberg.com — Stocks in Asia put in a mixed performance as summer breaks appeared to put a damper on trading volumes. The yuan slid as China signaled it was comfortable with the currency’s recent retreat.

A pullback in Hong Kong and Chinese equities had no obvious trigger in trading that was below recent averages across the region. Indexes in Japan closed slightly lower. European futures were little changed. The yuan fell after the central bank weakened its morning fixing, a sign it had no issue with the currency’s slide. The yen held modest gains after the Bank of Japan lowered purchases of longer-maturity bonds for the first time since January.

Investors are assessing a mixed picture from the earnings season that has taken away some of the focus from trade tensions. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in a congressional hearing that the U.S. economy may not yet have reached full employment, while also noting that risks to the central bank’s inflation forecast were “roughly balanced.” Ten-year U.S. Treasury yields touched a three-week high after his comments did little to shift expectations for further monetary tightening.

Elsewhere, oil retained gains as investors assessed conflicting supply-and-demand signals in the world’s biggest economy. Australian employment surged by more than triple economists’ estimates in June, bolstering the central bank’s argument that strong economic growth will spur hiring and help drive inflation to potentially open the way for the first interest-rate hike in almost eight years.