US equity futures drift as Europe, Asia stocks climb

Bloomberg

US equity futures struggled for direction and stocks in Europe and Asia climbed as investors awaited the release of minutes from the latest meetings of two of the world’s key central banks. The dollar edged higher and the yuan rose after a report America is asking China to keep its currency stable.
Contracts on the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes nudged lower on Wednesday, while those on the Nasdaq gauge were little changed. Carmakers led an advance as the Stoxx Europe 600 Index erased Tuesday’s drop, while Lloyds Banking Group rose after it unveiled a $2.3 billion buyback plan. UK grocer J Sainsbury plunged on antitrust objections to its planned takeover of Walmart’s Asda.
Treasuries were flat and European bonds mostly edged up, but Italian notes declined. The euro was little changed and the pound slipped as Prime Minister Theresa May headed back to Brussels in a last-ditch attempt to save her Brexit deal, and as three Conservatives quit to join a new party.
In Asia, equities in South Korea and Hong Kong set the pace for gains across most of the region. The Japanese yen dropped, giving shares a boost, after the nation’s trade deficit came in wider than expected.
With the US and China continuing negotiations toward a trade deal, the latest news has shifted focus to a campaign promise made by President Donald Trump to address Beijing’s periodic devaluation of the yuan. Investors will also be preoccupied by the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve later on Wednesday and from the European Central Bank a day later, while they’ll have a glut of German data to contend with towards the end of the week.
“At the start of the year with the upshoot in equities, everything was sort of moving together,” Peter Borish, chief strategist at Quad Capital LLC, told Bloomberg TV in New York. “We are now starting to not see that and that is always the first sign of warning signals in the market place that it might be getting ready for a correction.”
Elsewhere, gold traded at the highest since April and palladium soared to a record as a shortage started to bite. West Texas crude oil fluctuated around $56 a barrel in New York. Emerging-market shares rallied and their currencies advanced. South Africa’s rand fell as the government unveiled a bailout package for utility Eskom.