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Asian stocks slide to two-month low on debt ceiling jitters
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An electronic board shows Shanghai and Shenzhen stock indexes at the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai, China, Oct. 25, 2022. (Reuters/Aly Song)
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sian shares stumbled to a two-month low on Thursday, and the US dollar rose as the impasse in negotiations to raise the US debt ceiling undermined risky assets on worries about the hit to the global economy if the US government defaults.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.84 percent to 503.93, the lowest since March 21, and was on track for second straight month of losses.
China shares fell 0.53 percent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index tumbled 2 percent to their weakest in 2023. The drop in these two markets weighed on MSCI's Asia ex-Japan index, whose top 10 constituents include Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group Holding, AIA Group and Meituan.
Tokyo's Nikkei remained an outlier in the region and was up 0.5 percent.
Negotiators for Democratic President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy held what both sides called productive talks on Wednesday as they race to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling.
But with no resolution in sight traders remained wary of a possible and catastrophic default with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen maintaining early June as a debt ceiling default deadline.
"There's a beginning of a sense that maybe this time is a little bit different," said Rob Carnell, ING's regional head of research, Asia-Pacific.
"Despite the comments that progress keeps being made, you just wonder, McCarthy gets a deal [and] whether even his own party will support it," he said. "So that's a concern."
Credit ratings agency Fitch put the United States on watch for a possible downgrade late on Wednesday, further dampening sentiment.
A downgrade could affect the pricing of trillions of dollars of Treasury debt securities. Fitch's move revived memories of 2011, when S&P downgraded the United States to AA-plus and set off a cascade of other downgrades as well as a stock market sell off.
"I hope Fitch knows the consequences of doing this and they're almost doing it just to try and put a bit of pressure on," ING's Carnell said. "It doesn't necessarily mean they will downgrade but it's like saying, 'you better be mindful, otherwise this is coming'."
Overnight, Wall Street's main indexes ended lower on debt-ceiling concerns.
E-mini futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.38 percent, while Nasdaq futures spiked 1.4 percent higher in early Asian hours after Nvidia Corp forecast second-quarter revenue more than 50 percent above Wall Street estimates.
The semiconductor company said it was boosting supply to meet surging demand for its artificial-intelligence chips, which are used to power ChatGPT and many similar services.
European stocks were set for a higher open, with the Eurostoxx 50 futures up 0.14 percent, German DAX futures 0.16 percent higher and FTSE futures up 0.21 percent.
On the monetary policy front, Federal Reserve officials "generally agreed" last month that the need for further interest rate increases "had become less certain," according to minutes of the May 2-3 meeting when the benchmark rate was raised a quarter-percentage-point to 5.00 percent-5.25 percent. Several officials said that hike might be the last.
Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at National Australia Bank, said the minutes reflect the somewhat divided nature of much of the post-May meeting commentary from an array of Fed officials.
"Those advocating for the Fed to not be done at the current 5.0-5.25 percent do seem open to at least a pause in June," Attrill said.
Markets though are now pricing in 33.6 percent chance of a 25-basis-point hike in June, compared with 28 percent last week, according to CME FedWatch tool.
Treasury bills maturing around June 1, the so-called X-date when the government runs out of money, have been under pressure for weeks and came in for further selling, pushing yields on securities maturing on June 1 to 7.628 percent.
The two-year Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, was up 7 basis points at 4.413 percent.
In the currency market, the dollar index, which measures the US currency against six peers, rose 0.173 percent, touching a fresh two-month peak of 104.06.
The yen weakened 0.14 percent to 139.66 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.234, down 0.19 percent on the day.
US crude fell 0.17 percent to $74.21 per barrel and Brent was at $78.32, down 0.05 percent on the day.
