Global stocks set to snap 9-week winning streak on Fed repricing
By Kevin Buckland
TOKYO (Reuters) — Asian stocks wobbled on Friday, keeping global equities on track to snap a nine-week winning streak, while the dollar was poised for its strongest weekly advance since mid-July as bets on aggressive Federal Reserve rate cuts were rolled back.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1% in the Asian morning, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipping 0.18%.
The MSCI world index was about flat so far on the day, but heading for a 1.7% decline this week.
Japan's Nikkei was something of an outlier, bouncing 0.5% on Friday as exporters got a boost from the yen's slide back to just shy of 145 per dollar amid a rise in U.S. Treasury yields.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the currency against a basket of six major peers including the yen, hovered around 102.39, not far from Wednesday's three-week high of 102.73. For the week, it is up 0.97%.
Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield was hovering just below the psychological 4% mark at about 3.99%, up some 13 basis points over the week.
Overnight, Wall Street's S&P 500 retreated 0.34%, taking its losses this week to 1.7%, setting up its first weekly decline since late October. Futures pointed to a 0.08% rise at the reopen.
The latest catalyst for a paring of Fed rate-cut bets came from more resilient U.S. labour market data on Thursday, putting less pressure on the central bank to race to ease policy.
Traders now see a little better than 2-in-3 odds that the Fed cuts rates by March, down from a 71% probability a week earlier, according to the CME Group's (NASDAQ:CME) Fedwatch tool.
The release of monthly U.S. payrolls figures looms large later in the day, with investors «agonising» over the timing and pace of rate cuts,
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