Reuters - Asia's stock markets rose Friday following Wall Street overnight but were set for their softest week in about a month as investors worry about economic data and increasing valuations after recent buying that has eliminated coronavirus losses.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6 percent Friday. However, it is poised to snap a four-week winning streak with a small weekly loss.
Japan's Nikkei rose 0.3 percent but was headed for a 1.5 percent weekly drop while selling in bonds has moderated in recent days as caution and summertime lassitude weighs on the mood after the S&P 500 touched another record intraday peak.
Another rise in technology stock prices took the Nasdaq to a new all-time closing high. "It's always going to be a little harder, once that's happened, to figure out where things are going," ING's head of Asia research Rob Carnell said.
In the absence of a disaster, he said, upward drift was probably the most likely direction, though perhaps with less conviction than the exuberance that has driven world stocks up 50 percent from March lows.
"The news is just too mixed at the moment rather than outright catastrophically, apocalyptically bad. And so (investors are) going to keep on cautiously adding and things will carry on going up - and it can go on a long time like that."
Overnight, clouds returned to the U.S. labor market outlook, with weekly jobless claims back over a million to put the total number of Americans on unemployment benefits at 28 million.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's business index also missed expectations and together the weak readings pushed down nominal U.S. yields and dragged on the dollar. Benchmark U.S. 10-year debt yields were last steady at 0.6558 percent.
Investors are looking ahead to purchasing managers' index surveys across Europe, Britain and the U.S. - where steady, slightly positive, readings are expected - for the next broad gauge of the recovery's progress.
Japan's factory activity fell in August for a 16th month, a private business survey showed, casting doubt over manufacturers' hopes for a rapid recovery.
In currency markets, the U.S. dollar seems unable to shake downward pressure. A bounce in the wake of the release of Federal Reserve minutes that fell short of dovish market expectations wore off fairly quickly and it looks headed for a ninth consecutive weekly loss against its basket of comparative currencies.
Sterling reversed losses against the dollar overnight to sit at $1.3122 and the risk-sensitive Australian dollar again was above $0.72. The euro was steady at $1.1864.
Currency traders are increasingly concentrating on an address Thursday by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in case he reveals any details of an expected shift in policy emphasis - especially around inflation - that were absent in the minutes.
The yen rose to 105.67 after an inflation miss supported real yields. The Thailand baht is tracking for its worst week in a month as investors begin to fret about political unrest.
Elsewhere, and perhaps indicating the low bar for impressing traders, markets interpreted the lack of a U.S. rebuff to a China push for trade talks soon as a positive sign and the yuan hit a seven-month high of 6.8935.
In commodity markets, the prospect of production cuts had oil prices on track for a third straight weekly gain. Brent crude futures were last up 0.4 percent at $45.06 a barrel and U.S. crude futures rose 0.2 percent to $42.90 a barrel. Gold was steady at $1,947.66 an ounce.
