Reuters - Asia share indexes struggled Monday as super-strong U.S. corporate earnings sucked funds out of emerging markets and into Wall Street.
More than one-third of S&P 500 is set to report quarterly results this week, headlined by Facebook Inc., Tesla Inc., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com.
Oliver Jones, a senior markets economist at Capital Economics, noted U.S. earnings were projected to be roughly 50% higher in 2023 than they were in the year immediately before the pandemic, significantly more than was anticipated in most other big economies.
"With so much optimism baked in, it seems likely to us that the tail wind of rising earnings forecasts, which provided so much support to the stock market over the past year, will fade," he said.
Nasdaq futures were up 0.1% in early trade, while S&P 500 futures held steady.
As funds flock to Wall Street, Asia markets have been largely snubbed. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan has been trending sideways since March and was up just a fraction Monday.
Japan's Nikkei bounced 1.6% in early trade, but that was off a seven-month low. South Korea has fared somewhat better thanks to demand for tech stocks but was little changed Monday.
The week is also packed with U.S. data that should underline the economy's outperformance. Second quarter gross domestic product is forecast to show annualized growth of 8.6%, while the U.S. Federal Reserve's favored measure of core inflation is seen rising an annual 3.7% in June.
The Federal Reserve meets Wednesday and, while no change in policy is expected, chairperson Jerome Powell will likely be pressed to clarify what "substantial further progress" on employment would look like.
"The main message from Fed Chair Powell's post-meeting news conference should be consistent with his testimony before Congress in mid-July when he signaled no rush for tapering," said NatWest Markets economist Kevin Cummins.
"However, he will clearly remind market participants that the taper countdown has officially begun."
So far, the bond market has been remarkably untroubled by the prospect of eventual tapering with yields on U.S. 10-year notes having fallen for four weeks in a row to stand at 1.28%.
The drop has done little to undermine the dollar, in part because European yields have fallen even further amid expectations of continued massive bond buying from the European Central Bank.
The single currency has been trending lower since June and touched a four-month trough of $1.1750 last week. It was last at $1.1770 and looked at risk of testing its 2021 low of $1.1702.
The dollar has also been edging up on the yen to reach 110.57, but remains short of its recent peak at 111.62. The fall in the euro has lifted the dollar index to 92.891, a long way from its May trough of 89.533.
The rise in the dollar has offset the drop in bond yields to leave gold range-bound around $1,800 an ounce.
Oil prices have fared better on bets demand will remain strong as the world economy gradually opens and supply stays tight. Brent was trading 23 cents firmer at $74.33 a barrel, while U.S. crude added 20 cents to $72.27.
In the U.S. the coming week will be the most important of this quarter's earnings season.
Big technology companies report - Google parent Alphabet Inc., e-commerce and cloud-computing company Amazon.com Inc., iPhone maker Apple Inc., social-media company Facebook Inc. and software maker Microsoft Corp.
The five make up more than one-fifth of the market cap of the S&P 500 index as of the end of the second quarter at 22%. In the first quarter, they provided nearly 10% of sales of the 500-member index and nearly 18% of the profit.
Apple stopped providing guidance during the pandemic. Microsoft is expected to wrap up its fiscal year by breaking records it set the year before by a healthy amount. It will likely only provide official financial guidance for the coming quarter instead of the full year, as executives have done in the past.
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk has sent cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin on crazy rides with his tweets and pronouncements so far this year but when he kicks off the week's after-hours earnings slate late Monday ET, the concentration will be on Tesla and its stock.
Also watch for chip-shortage commentary from Ford Motor Co. Wednesday as well as chip supplier Qualcomm Corp.
Boeing BA is expected to post another loss in the quarter, but analysts predict that it will go against the grain and post a loss much wider than the average consensus. "We think Boeing is set to announce another monster second quarter loss," Vertical Research said.
