Wall Street indices finished yesterday's trading mixed, although scale of the moves was small. S&P 500 gained 0.08%, Nasdaq moved 0.07% higher, while Dow Jones closed 0.12% lower. Small-cap Russell 2000 was the underperformer with an over 1% drop
Indices from Asia-Pacific traded mostly lower today - Nikkei dropped 0.2%, S&P/ASX 200 moved 0.6% lower, Kospi plunged 1.1%, while Nifty 50 added 0.3%
Indices from China traded 0.5-1.2% lower today
European index futures point to a flat or slightly lower opening of today's cash session for major indices from the Old Continent
Newsflow during the Asia-Pacific session was light and no major moves could be spotted on the markets. Investors seem to be in 'wait-and-see' mode ahead of this week's central bank decisions and Big Tech earnings
MUFG sees risk of Bank of Japan not hiking rates before December this year
Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary, said that while monetary policy is up to Bank of Japan to decide, BoJ will coordinate with government to conduct appropriate policy toward inflation target
Japanese unemployment rate dropped from 2.6% to 2.5% in June (exp. 2.6%)
Australian building approvals plunged 6.5% MoM in June (exp. -3.0% MoM)
Major cryptocurrencies pull back - Bitcoin drops 1.6%, Ethereum trades 1.3% lower and Dogecoin drops 0.3%
Energy commodities are pulling back - oil drops 0.5%, while US natural gas prices are down 0.2%
Precious metals trade little changed - gold and silver gain 0.1%, platinum adds 0.2%, while palladium drops 0.2%
NZD and AUD are the best performing major currencies, while JPY and CHF lag the most