Investing.com - The forecast for the Australian stock market isn't bright this morning, with a projected fall due to an underwhelming performance in the US markets. The weakened earnings of prominent retailers and concerns over the future of American consumers have cast a shadow on investor sentiment. On the other hand, Asian shares managed to somewhat recover from recent losses.
As of Wednesday morning at 9:30am, ASX 200 Futures were down by 0.1%, indicating a likely rough start.
Tuesday saw a marginal dip in US stocks following less-than-stellar retailer earnings reports, raising questions about the health of consumer spending in America.
Market watchers are keenly focused on two significant events later this week - NVIDIA Corporation's (NASDAQ:NVDA) quarterly report scheduled for Wednesday and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's speech set for Friday. These could provide insights into AI investment trends and potential interest rate trajectories respectively.
Both S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced declines - 0.3% and 0.5% respectively - while tech giants like Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) helped the NASDAQ Composite gain slightly by 0.1%. Meanwhile, Canadian stocks also took a hit with S&P/TSX Composite falling by 0.5%.
In commodities trading, Brent crude oil witnessed a drop of 0.5% settling at $84.08 per barrel, while gold prices showed modest growth of 0.2%, settling at $1897.88.
For government bond yields, rates remained fairly constant; Australia’s stayed steady at nearly 3.923% for 2-Year bonds and 4.25% for 10-Year bonds. Meanwhile, U.S Treasury notes saw higher yields with the 10-Year at 4.321% and the 2-Year at 5.046%.
The Aussie dollar climbed against its US counterpart reaching up to 0.6424 while the US Dollar Index was at 103.58.
Among Asian markets, Chinese stocks rallied after their recent downturn after the central bank slashed lending rates, earlier this week though not significantly enough to make a substantial difference. Tech companies along with telecoms drove these gains, with China Mobile Ltd (SS:600941) growing over 3% followed closely behind by Iflytek Co Ltd (SZ:002230) gaining more than 2.5%.
However, pharmaceutical companies suffered as Shanghai Jahwa United Co Ltd (SS:600315) experienced double-digit declines, capping gains on the benchmark Shanghai Composite to 0.9%, while the Shenzhen Composite rose 0.5%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index broke a seven-session losing streak ending the day up 1% thanks mainly to the retail technology sector. Zhongsheng Group Holdings Ltd (HK:0881) and Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Health Information Technology Ltd (HK:0241) made considerable strides upwards, while consumer-goods sector suffered minor a setback.
Japanese equities ended positive note led primarily by banking sectors Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (TYO:8306), Sumitomo Mitsui Financial (TYO:8316) each advancing over 3% each. the Nikkei 225 added 1.1%, while Japanese government bond yields fluctuated.