Asian Stock Market: Grinds lower as Japan holiday tames strong yields

• Asian shares seesaw amid a quiet session with Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan.
• Powell’s re-nomination as the Fed Chair boost rate hike concerns and yields.
• US warships again sail on Taiwan Strait, covid woes renew in the west.
• Preliminary PMIs for November eyed ahead of Wednesday’s FOMC Minutes.

Off in Japan joins a light calendar to offer sluggish Asian session on Tuesday. Even so, the Asia-Pacific shares remain pressured amid firmer yields as Fed hawks cheer US President Joe Biden’s decision to nominate Jerome Powell for another term as the Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair and Richard Clarida for Vice-Chairman.

That said, MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rises 0.75% whereas the US 10-year Treasury yields remain lackluster around 1.62% ahead of the European session.

Australia’s ASX 200 prints mild gains as mixed PMIs from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia joined comments from Marion Kohler, Head of Domestic Markets at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). Alternatively, New Zealand’s NZX 50 prints mild losses despite downbeat Q3 Retail Sales amid strong bets over the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s (RBNZ) rate hike during Wednesday’s monetary policy decision.

Elsewhere, fears of China’s softer economic growth and fresh covid woes from the West challenge the equity bulls from Beijing, which in turn drowns shares from South Korea, Indonesia, India and Hong Kong. Also weighing on the Asia-Pacific stocks are fears of fresh US-China tussles as the US warships again sail on the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Tuesday.

On a broader front, firmer US Treasury yields probe equity bulls ahead of the preliminary readings of the November month PMIs for the UK, Eurozone and the US.

Moving on, PMIs and Fed-rate-hike concerns may challenge the share markets while talks over covid resurgence and stimulus from Japan, China and the US can keep buyers hopeful.

Read: US 10-year yield shoots back above 1.60% while 2, 5 and 7-year yields all hit multi-month highs on Powell renomination, bad auctions