Markets Overview

  • ASX SPI 200 futures up 0.2% to 8,023.00
  • Dow Average up 0.3% to 40,227.59
  • Aussie up 0.6% to 0.6432 per US$
  • US 10-year yield fell 2.9bps to 4.2063%
  • Australia 3-year bond yield fell 3.1 bps to 3.30%
  • Australia 10-year bond yield fell 6.6 bps to 4.17%
  • Gold spot up 0.7% to $3,344.14
  • Brent futures down 1.8% to $65.69/bbl

Economic Events

  • 12:05: (AU) RBA Assistant Governor Kent- Speech

Asian stocks were set for a sluggish open as traders await a slew of corporate earnings and economic data from Wall Street this week that will give early indicators on the impacts of Donald Trump’s tariff war.

Futures show marginal moves in Hong Kong and Sydney benchmarks early Tuesday, while US contracts slid. That’s after a late wave of dip buying wiped out losses in US stocks, sending the S&P 500 higher for a fifth straight day. The dollar steadied after falling Monday, helping havens like the Japanese yen and Swiss franc. Tokyo is closed for a public holiday.

With a jittery April near a close, several market pros see little reason to think volatility is in the rearview mirror. The five-day rally in stocks, the longest advance since November, also faces a significant test this week amid US data from jobs to inflation and economic growth, as well as earnings from some of the biggest technology companies in the US.

“Underneath the surface, key risks persist — trade tensions, recession worries, and monetary policy uncertainties are very much alive,” said Fawad Razaqzada at City Index and Forex.com.

For equities to keep rallying, investors would need to see the White House follow through on the “dovish pivot” toward trade with China, according to Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley.

Such a pivot looks unlikely. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC the US has put China to the side for now as it seeks trade deals with between 15 to 17 other countries, while indicating it’s up to Beijing to take the first step in de-escalating the tariff fight.

That means there doesn’t seem any quick fix to the wall of levies erected between the two biggest economies, which will have implications for global trade and markets in the months to come. On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry again denied the nations were discussing winding back tariffs.

On Monday, Boeing Co. and International Business Machines Corp. led gains in blue chips, while Nvidia Corp. sank on news Huawei Technologies Co. is set to test a new chip. Its megacap peers Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. will report results in coming days. Short-term Treasuries outperformed.

A widely followed measure of Texas manufacturing activity weakened significantly as executives used words like “chaos” and “insanity” to describe the tariff turmoil, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

“This will be one of the busiest weeks of the year,” said Anthony Saglimbene at Ameriprise. “Ongoing trade headlines, an economic calendar filled with key releases and the peak week of the earnings season, including several Magnificent Seven companies reporting results, should keep investors’ heads spinning.”

Meanwhile, the dollar dropped on Monday as investors continue to sell US assets under Trump’s policies — a trend that JPMorgan Chase & Co. expects to continue. The US president’s trade war and harsh rhetoric against China have pushed investors to start piling into assets outside of the US.

Speculative traders, including hedge funds and asset managers, have increased their bets against the dollar in the week through April 22.

Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson says the weak dollar will support US corporate earnings, helping the American stock market to outperform the rest of the world. Yet Wilson expects the S&P 500 to remain in the 5,000 to 5,500 range. A more substantial increase would require a tariff deal with China, clear rebound in earnings estimates and the possibility of easier monetary policy, he wrote.

“We expect a choppy market in the intermediate term that could be rangebound until clarity is achieved on what effect tariffs have on corporate earnings, which as of now remains very unclear,” said Brian Buetel at UBS Wealth Management.

In commodities, crude oil opened little changed Tuesday.