Asian Shares, U.S. Futures Rise After U.S. Debt Ceiling Deal

Asian shares and US stock futures rose on Monday, May 29, 2023, thanks to a weekend deal by US President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to suspend the government's debt ceiling, ending a protracted stalemate and providing some relief for investors, Stella Qiu reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: The positive news lifted S&P 500 futures 0.2% in Asia while Nasdaq futures firmed 0.4%.

After weeks of negotiations, congressional Republican McCarthy and Biden forged an agreement late on Saturday to avert an economically destabilizing default to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling until 2025.

The deal will now have to pass through the narrowly divided Congress.

The positive news lifted S&P 500 futures 0.2% in Asia while Nasdaq futures firmed 0.4%. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.3%, after a 1.1% drop the previous week.

Tokyo's Nikkei surged 1.3% to a fresh 33-year high. Moving in the opposite direction, China's blue chips eased 0.1% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slipped 0.3%, weighed down by profit data for China's industrial firms on the weekend that reinforced growing signs of loss of momentum in the world's second-biggest economy.

Cash US Treasuries were untraded in Asia on Monday, owing to the Memorial Day holiday, while futures were broadly steady. Two-year yields hit a 2-1/2 month high of 4.6390% on Friday on markets bets of higher Federal Reserve rates for longer. US shares rallied at the end of last week on hopes of a debt ceiling deal and optimism about artificial intelligence.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended a five-day losing streak on Friday, while the Nasdaq Composite Index and S&P 500 closed at their highest levels since August 2022.

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