Major global stock markets were mostly higher Monday as investors looked ahead to the Fed’s meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for clues on timing for possible interest rate hikes.
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Kansas City Federal Reserve hosts its annual monetary policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.; initial jobless claims; durable goods orders; Kansas City Fed’s manufacturing index; Bloomberg consumer comfort index.
Gold fell on Monday to its lowest in nearly two weeks as the dollar strengthened. Amid conflicting signals from the Fed in recent days, central bankers from around the world will gather from August 25 for an annual meeting in the mountains of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with Chair Janet Yellen due to speak the following day.
The dollar was up 0.5 percent at 100.760 yen JPY=, pulling further away from an 8-week low of 99.550 struck early last week.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.7 percent, after losing 0.3 percent last week.
Japan’s Nikkei .N225 rose 0.3 percent in early trade, taking solace from a weaker currency, but then shed the gains.
The Australian dollar slipped 0.4 percent to $0.7595 AUD=D4, having touched a 2-week low of $0.7584.
Analysts expect Yellen to express caution but support the impression the USA central bank is on track to raise rates as early as this year.
Exporters Hitachi, Honda Motor, Panasonic, Sharp Corp, Sony and Toyota Motor rose over a percent each as the dollar rose to 100.66 yen from 100.20 yen in New York Friday on expectations for a possible USA rate hike this year. Oil & gas producer Santos slumped 6.8 percent and Beach Energy retreated 6.6 percent as a rally in oil prices faded. USA gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,337.20 an ounce.
Online jobs portal Seek lost 1 percent despite reporting another record full-year profit.
India’s Sensex was down 0.2 percent, showing little reaction to the announcement that the current RBI Deputy Governor Urjit Patel would take over as the next central bank chief on September 4. Benchmark indexes in Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan were down between 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent while Malaysian shares were marginally higher.
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Treasury yields rose Friday after a Federal Reserve policy maker added to calls for a potential rate hike next month and investors looked ahead to Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s speech next week. The Nasdaq composite lost 1.77 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 5,238.38.
