Asian stocks advanced Tuesday, buoyed by gains on Wall Street, as US shares extended their rally and a $16 billion sale of 20-year Treasuries lured bond buyers. The dollar extended losses.
Technology stocks were among the outperformers in the region. A gauge of China developers gained as much as 7.6%, poised for the biggest increase since September after Bloomberg reported that regulators are drafting a list of 50 developers eligible for a range of financing. US contracts edged higher after the S&P 500 had its strongest close since August and the Nasdaq 100 hit a 22-month high.
Treasuries held gains in Asian trading following a strong 20-year auction in the previous session. Shortly after the auction results, US 10-year yields reversed course and fell to around 4.4% Monday, pushing the dollar to an 11-week low. The greenback fell against all its Group-of-10 peers Tuesday on bets that US rates may have peaked while the offshore yuan strengthened beyond the daily fixing for the first time since July.
The dollar weakness set the yen up for a fourth day of gains and pushed a benchmark of emerging-market currencies toward its best performance since 2017.
The “mini” bear trend in the dollar has a little bit further to run, Richard Franulovich, head of FX strategy at Westpac Banking Corp., told Bloomberg Television.
In China, developers’ bonds gained along with their shares as the so-called white list helped alleviate fears of further contagion in the property sector while Longfor Group Holdings Ltd.’s 2032 notes rose 4 cents Monday, on pace for its biggest gain in almost two weeks while another local developer Seazen Group Ltd. saw its shares up as much as 17% on Tuesday, the largest increase since early September.
“Overall, we are pleased to hear that regulators are more proactive to help the sector,” Raymond Cheng, head of China and Hong Kong research at CGS-CIMB Securities, wrote in a note. “For developers with a liquidity problem, it is too early to expect them to benefit in the near future.”
The People’s Bank of China is also mulling further measures to shore up credit, encouraging lenders to cap the amount of new loans they issue in early 2024, people familiar with the matter said.
More clues of recovery in the world’s second largest economy may come from Baidu Inc. as well as Kuaishou Technology that are in the pipeline to report results Tuesday. Baidu will probably report a 5.1% increase in revenue, estimates show, while Kuaishou may report little-changed earnings sequentially as improvements in content algorithms and e-commerce sales were offset by weaker live-streaming revenue.
Attractive Yields
Traders have also been fixated on Treasury sales, especially after the US recently offered an unusually large premium to sell 30-year securities. Those auctions have been exerting a growing sway over stocks, underscoring how the path of interest rates is gripping markets of late. The 20-year bond auction drew yields of 4.78%, compared with the pre-sale level of 4.79%.
After a more than three-decade hiatus, the Treasury resurrected 20-year bonds in May 2020. Before Monday’s auction, it had not sold the securities during the Thanksgiving week. They’ve traded at a discount to other long-term maturities — which caused a degree of apprehension ahead of the sale.
“Treasuries offer extremely attractive yields,” according to Principal Asset Management. “And while the potential for capital appreciation might be limited in the face of an impending economic slowdown, the assurance of a steady income from Treasuries makes them a solid option for investors prioritizing stability heading into an uncertain 2024.”
In the artificial intelligence sector, OpenAI’s investors are still trying to return co-founder Sam Altman to a leadership role at the ChatGPT maker. Earlier, Microsoft Corp. climbed to fresh peaks after it hired Altman and Greg Brockman to lead its research team. In late US trading, Zoom Video Communications Inc. rose on better-than-expected sales, while Nvidia Corp. will report quarterly results Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is set to rise toward its all-time high early next year, pullback midyear and then rally back toward the highs, according to strategists at Societe Generale SA.
“The S&P 500 should be in ‘buy-the-dip’ territory, as leading indicators for profits continue to improve,” wrote Manish Kabra. “Yet, the journey to the end of the year should be far from smooth” he added, citing an economic downturn, a looming credit selloff, and ongoing quantitative tightening as hurdles traders still need to face.
Elsewhere, oil held the bulk of a two-day gain that was driven by speculation OPEC+ may deepen supply cuts at a meeting this weekend.
