Stock market today: Asian shares mostly fall ahead of central bank meetings

Tokyio, Jul 30 (AP) Asian shares mostly declined in cautious trading on Tuesday ahead of central bank meetings around the world.

The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are holding monetary policy meetings this week.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 reversed earlier losses to rise 0.2 per cent in afternoon trading to 38,525.95.

Australia's S and P/ASX 200 fell 0.5 per cent to 7,953.20. South Korea's Kospi shed 1 per cent to 2,738.19. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 1.3 per cent to 17,014.17, while the Shanghai Composite index declined 0.4 per cent to 2,879.30.

"Markets may be having a tough time positioning the central bank meetings this week," Jing Yi Tan of Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.

In Japan, the government reported the nation's unemployment rate in June stood at 2.5 per cent, inching down from 2.6 per cent the previous month, and marking the first improvement in five months.

US stock indexes drifted to a mixed finish on Monday to kick off a week full of earnings reports from Wall Street's most influential companies and a Federal Reserve meeting on interest rates.

The S and P 500 edged up 0.1 per cent to 5,463.54, coming off its first back-to-back weekly losses since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1 per cent to 40,539.93, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.1 per cent to 17,370.20.

ON Semiconductor helped lead the market with a jump of 11.5 per cent after the supplier to the auto and other industries reported stronger profit for the spring than analysts expected. McDonald's rose 3.7 per cent despite reporting profit and revenue for the latest quarter that fell shy of forecasts. Analysts said its performance at US restaurants wasn't as bad as some investors had feared.

Oil-and-gas companies were some of the heaviest weights on the market after the price of oil sank back toward where it was two months ago. ConocoPhillips lost 1.6 per cent, and Exxon Mobil slipped 1 per cent amid worries about how much crude China's faltering economy will burn.

Several of Wall Street's biggest names are set to report their results later this week: Microsoft on Tuesday, Meta Platforms on Wednesday and Apple and Amazon on Thursday. Their stock movements carry extra weight on Wall Street because they are among the market's largest by total value.

Such Big Tech stocks drove the S and P 500 to dozens of records this year, in part on investors' frenzy around artificial intelligence technology, but they ran out of momentum this month amid criticism they have grown too expensive, and as alternatives began to look more attractive. Last week, investors found profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet underwhelming, which raised concerns that other stocks in what is known as the “Magnificent Seven” group of Big Tech stocks could also fail to impress.

Smaller stocks have soared on expectations that slowing inflation will get the Federal Reserve to soon begin cutting interest rates. But that pattern unwound a bit Monday as the majority of Big Tech stocks rose while the smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index shed 1.1 per cent. The index is still up by a market-leading 9.2 per cent for the month so far.

The Fed will hold a policy meeting on interest rates this week, and an announcement will come Wednesday. Virtually no one expects a move then, but the widespread expectation is that it will begin easing at its following meeting in September.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.17 per cent from 4.19 per cent late Friday. It was as high as 4.70 per cent in April.

In energy trading, benchmark US crude lost 39 cents to USD 75.42 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 37 cents to USD 79.41.

In currency trading, the US dollar edged up to 155.02 Japanese yen from 154.00 yen. The euro cost USD 1.0824, down from USD $1.0826. (AP) PY PY