Down Under, the Reserve Bank of Australia is due to announce its policy decision later on Tuesday, where expectations are for the central bank to keep rates on hold.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan swung between losses and gains and was last up 0.2 per cent while South Korea’s KOPSI rose 0.3 per cent, as the latest escalation in Gulf hostilities kept market sentiment fragile.
Nasdaq futures edged 0.28 per cent higher while S&P 500 futures added 0.1 per cent after Wall Street ended lower in Monday’s cash session.
EUROSTOXX 50 futures slipped 0.05 per cent, while FTSE futures and DAX futures were flat.
Overnight, Nvidia said it has partnered with six major financial institutions to launch compute financing platforms aimed at raising over US$500 billion in third-party capital for AI infrastructure, underscoring the scale of the sector’s investment boom.
„A small part of me was left wondering whether this is how it felt when sub-prime mortgages first became a mainstream product – the innovation that eventually helped trigger the GFC,“ said IG’s Sycamore.
In currencies, the yen was back in the spotlight, struggling on the weaker side of 159 per dollar and well away from last week’s high of 155.20 following several suspected rounds of intervention, including a joint one by Japan and the United States.
„The market likely remains vigilant about further joint US-Japan yen-buying intervention, so USD/JPY breaching 160 in the very near term seems unlikely,“ said analysts at Nomura in a note.
„However, the latest price action indicates there are quite a lot of USD/JPY dip-buyers, after the pair reached the 156-157 range for the first time since May.“
The dollar got a marginal lift from the renewed climb in oil prices, keeping the euro away from a 1.5-month high as it last traded at US$1.1546, while sterling eased from Monday’s one-month top and changed hands at US$1.3512.
Elsewhere, spot gold was up 0.5 per cent to US$4,409.81 an ounce.