The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsAsian markets make nervous start ahead of Fed decision
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
Pedestrians walk past an electronic quotation board displaying the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo on July 22, 2026. (AFP/Philip Fong)
S
tocks made tentative gains at the start of the Asian trading session on Wednesday as a rise in global bond yields and oil prices paused ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy decision due later in the day.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fluctuated between gains and losses after declining for four consecutive sessions and was last up 0.2 percent, led by a 0.8 percent gain in Korean shares S&P 500 e-mini futures nudged 0.1 percent higher.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 slumped 0.5 percent, marking its second consecutive day of declines as the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond hit its highest level since 2007.
"US equity markets closed lower overnight as rising Treasury yields, another jump in crude and the polarized debate around pacing AI development left the market in a cautious mood," said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG in Sydney.
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury bond was 0.8 basis point lower at 4.9875 percent in Asian trade after breaching the 5 percent mark on Tuesday for the first time in three years, ahead of a rate decision from the Federal Reserve and a media conference by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.
Traders believe that a hike from the Federal Reserve is almost assured, pricing an implied 92.4 percent probability of a 25-basis-point hike when it announces its policy decision, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, compared to a 59.4 percent chance a week ago.
The US dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading near a two-week high at 99.656.
Oil prices slipped as trading resumed in Asia, with Brent crude futures down 0.6 percent at $108.08 a barrel after rising 2.9 percent on Tuesday after shipping industry sources said crude loadings at Saudi Arabia's Red Sea export hub of Yanbu had been suspended and Riyadh had canceled some cargo deliveries to European customers.
Digital assets extended losses after the US Senate on Tuesday voted against advancing comprehensive cryptocurrency legislation backed by President Donald Trump. Bitcoin slid 0.1 percent to $75,816.24, while ether slipped 0.2 percent to $2,403.27.
