By Kevin Buckland
TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian stocks were mixed in volatile trading on Tuesday as investors girded for three days of tech megacap earnings reports on Wall Street, kicking off with Google parent Alphabet later in the day.
The dollar drifted not far from a three-month high with one of the Federal Reserve’s preferred employment gauges – the JOLTS job openings report – due on Tuesday, ahead of highly anticipated monthly non-farm payrolls data on Friday. U.S. Treasury yields eased from three-month peaks.
The yen found its footing following Monday’s plunge to a three-month low as the coalition government’s drubbing in weekend elections clouded the outlook for Japanese fiscal and monetary policies. The Nikkei index recovered from a cautious start to build on the previous session’s gains.
The U.S. election has entered its final stretch, with opinion polls still too close to call a winner, despite some betting sites and financial markets leaning toward a win for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.
Crude ticked up slightly following its plunge on Monday on signs the war in the Middle East would not widen, after Israel avoided targeting oil and nuclear facilities in a retaliatory strike on Iran at the weekend.
The Nikkei rose 0.65% as of 0213 GMT, building on its 1.82% rally in the previous session. It started the day down 0.21%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was 0.65% higher, paring earlier gains of as much as 1.6%. Mainland Chinese blue chips slipped 0.1%, giving up an early rise of 0.68%.
U.S. S&P 500 futures were flat after the cash index gained 0.26% overnight.
“The conviction to take these markets higher, we just don’t have that,” said Tony Sycamore, a markets analyst at IG. “We’re in a very, very tricky period here. It just doesn’t make sense to be chasing risk at this time.”
The bulk of the “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap technology stocks that have driven Wall Street to all-time highs this year report financial results this week, starting with Alphabet. Earnings from Meta Platforms and Microsoft are due on Wednesday, followed by Apple and Amazon on Thursday.
The dollar was little changed against a basket of six major peers, which includes the yen and euro. The dollar index stood at 104.24, after reaching 104.57 overnight, matching the high from Wednesday of last week, a level previously not seen since July 30.
Recent robust U.S. economic data, including evidence of a resilient job market, have seen bets pared back for easing this year by the Federal Reserve, boosting the dollar.