By Gregor Stuart Hunter
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -A relief rally swept across Asian markets and lifted stocks in early trading on Thursday as investors cheered Nvidia’s market-topping earnings, while the dollar rose as traders braced for the release of delayed jobs data. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.6%, rebounding from a one-month low, after Nvidia forecast quarterly revenue well above Wall Street estimates on Wednesday. CEO Jensen Huang touted blockbuster demand for its AI chips from giant cloud providers and shrugged off concerns about an AI bubble.
S&P 500 e-mini futures rose 1.1%. Nvidia “delivered yet another master class in AI dominance,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG in Sydney. Stocks on Wall Street had snapped a four-day losing streak on Wednesday before the earnings release. All three major indexes rebounded from the selloff as the world’s most valuable company’s earnings report tempered the AI valuation fears that had triggered the rout. The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major peers, advanced 0.1% to 100.17, hovering close to a two-week high. The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes rose to 4.1444% compared with its U.S. close of 4.131% on Wednesday. Traders are awaiting the release of September’s delayed jobs report, due for release later in the global day, to provide clues on the Federal Reserve’s next move. Minutes from the Fed’s October meeting released on Wednesday showed it cut interest rates even as policymakers cautioned that doing so could risk entrenched inflation and a loss of public trust in the U.S. central bank. Fed funds futures are pricing an implied 33% probability of a 25-basis-point cut at the next meeting on December 10, down from a 50% chance a day earlier, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool. An updated schedule for the release of the November jobs report, now delayed until December 16, is behind the move, said Gavin Friend, senior markets strategist at National Australia Bank in London. “That’s six days after the December FOMC meeting, and that’s why the 12 or 13 basis points of rate cuts that were priced in for December, 50% or so, has been immediately evaporated,” he said on a podcast. From the market’s perspective, he said, the data fog “plays to the Fed’s messaging that ‘we need to pause’.” The dollar dropped 0.2% against the yen to 156.92, after the Japanese currency reached its weakest level in ten months during U.S. trading hours, and set a record-low against the euro. Against the dollar, the European single currency was 0.1% weaker on the day at $1.1530. Brent crude was steady at $63.51 per barrel. Cryptocurrencies retraced a recent selloff, with bitcoin and ether both up 1.6% each. Gold advanced 0.7% to $4,108.22 per ounce. [GOL/]
(Reporting by Gregor Stuart HunterEditing by Shri Navaratnam)
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