Asian shares slip after Wall Street retreat, bond yields dip

Asian shares slip after Wall Street retreat, bond yields dip

SeattlePI.com

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BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mostly lower in Asia on Friday after stocks pulled back from their recent record highs on Wall Street as bond yields fell and investors turned cautious.

Benchmarks fell in Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Shanghai but rose in Hong Kong.

U.S. futures were higher and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.33%. On Thursday it fell to 1.30%, its lowest level since February. It recently was trading at 1.74%.

Traders have been shifting money into bonds in recent weeks, pulling down the benchmark yield, which is used to set rates on mortgages and many other kinds of loans.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 declined 0.6% to 27,940.42, while the Kospi in South Korea declined 1.1% to 3,217.95.

Investors are gauging the potential impact from COVID-19 variants stymying a resurgence in commerce and travel. In both countries, authorities have tightened pandemic precautions to counter fresh outbreaks of the coronavirus.

Fans also have been banned from the Tokyo Olympics, which begin later this month, amid a state of emergency aimed at containing rising coronavirus infections in the capital.

Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 gave up 0.9% to 7,273.30, while the Shanghai Composite index edged less than 0.1% lower, to 3,524.09. Shares also fell in India and Taiwan, but they rose in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng index gained 0.9% to 27,400.34.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 0.9% to 4,320.82, weighed down by a broad slide driven mainly in technology, financial, industrial and communication companies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.7% to 34,421.93. The Nasdaq composite snapped a three-day run of closing highs, sinking 0.7% to 14,559.78.

Smaller company stocks also fell. The Russell 2000 index slid 0.9%, to 2,231.68.

Longer-term bond yields tend to move along with...

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