Published : 5 days ago, on 03/12/2024

By Harry Robertson and Kevin Buckland

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) -European and Asian stocks rallied on Tuesday after tech companies spurred Wall Street to record highs overnight, while the dollar held steady after jumping the previous day.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 index rose 0.42% and Britain’s FTSE 100 climbed 0.79%. France’s CAC 40 was up 0.35% after failing to rise along with other European indexes on Monday as the government there teetered on the brink of collapse.

Japan’s tech-heavy Nikkei stock index rose 1.91% and the MSCI Asia index, which excludes Japan, climbed 1.16%. Australia’s stocks benchmark touched an all-time high and was last up 0.56%.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were roughly flat after the cash indexes hit new records on Monday helped by tech stocks including Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Tesla which both rallied 3%.

“There’s still really good companies who have very strong balance sheets, who have a lot of ability to generate cash,” said Timothy Graf, head of macro strategy for EMEA at State Street.

“I think a lot of the trades that have been working quite well the last two months are still performing,” he said. “The ones that haven’t worked well over the last week or two, things like crypto have come off, they don’t have those more resilient characteristics to them.”

The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency against six others, was little changed at 106.37. The euro inched up 0.1% to $1.0507 after dropping 0.74% on Monday, while the pound was flat at $1.2644.

The dollar gained more than 0.5% on Monday as the euro slid on the back of France’s political crisis, and was also boosted by tariff threats from President-elect Donald Trump and better-than-expected U.S. manufacturing data.

However, the greenback came under some pressure as Federal Reserve official Christopher Waller said he is “leaning toward” a rate cut on Dec. 18.

“We agree with (Waller’s) comments and remain in the December cut camp,” said Mohit Kumar, economist at Jefferies. “Post December, we expect the pace of rate cuts to reduce to once a quarter, with the following cut likely in March.”

The Chinese yuan faces its own challenges from the growing threat of more U.S. tariffs on China and it hit a 13-month trough of 7.3145 per dollar in the offshore market.

Trump demanded at the weekend that BRICS member countries – which include China – commit to not creating a new currency or supporting another currency to replace the dollar. He said they would otherwise face 100% tariffs.

The Fed-sensitive two-year U.S. Treasury yield dipped to 4.184% on Tuesday, heading back towards Friday’s four-week low.

Traders currently see about a 73% chance of a quarter-point cut at this month’s Fed meeting, up from 66% a day earlier and 52% a week ago, CME’s FedWatch Tool showed.

JOLTS job openings data – a preferred gauge of Fed officials – is due later on Tuesday, ahead of the monthly payrolls figures on Friday.

Tesla shares were around 1% lower in pre-market trading after a Delaware judge ruled on Monday that Elon Musk is still not entitled to receive a $56 billion compensation package despite shareholders voting for it.

Gold was flat at $2,638, following its retreat from an all-time high of $2,790.15 on Oct. 1.

Oil prices rose as traders awaited the outcome of an OPEC+ meeting later this week. Brent crude futures climbed 1.56% to $73.03 per barrel.

OPEC+ is likely at its meeting on Thursday to extend its latest round of oil output cuts until the end of the first quarter to boost the market, sources told Reuters.

(Reporting by Harry Robertson in London and Kevin Buckland in TokyoEditing by Shri Navaratnam and Saad Sayeed, Kirsten Donovan)