Stocks Open Mostly Lower On Wall Street

Wall Street teetered between gains and losses in premarket trading Tuesday ahead of a discussion with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that might give clues about the central bank’s interest rate plans for 2023, Joe McDonald reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: The NYSE trading floor

In Europe at midday, the FTSE 100 in London gained 0.5%, Frankfurt’s DAX fell 0.2% and the CAC 40 in Paris was flat.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo lost less than 0.1% to 27,685.47 after the government reported wages rose 4.8% over a year earlier in December. That was close to a three-decade high as workers press for higher pay to keep pace with inflation.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.3% to 3,248.09 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 0.6% to 21,298.70. The Kospi in Seoul added 0.6% to 2,451.71. Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 lost 0.5% to 7,504.10 after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage points to 3.35%.

The RBA said more hikes are planned to lower inflation that is at a 33-year high of 7.8% to its target range of 2% to 3%. India’s Sensex fell 0.4% to 60,284.40. New Zealand and Singapore declined while Jakarta and Bangkok advanced.

The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to track expectations for the Fed, leaped by an unusually wide margin to 4.47% from Friday’s 4.29% and the previous day’s 4.1%.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans, rose to 3.64% from 3.52% late on Friday. In energy markets, benchmark US crude gained $1.15 to $75.26 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The contract rose 72 cents to $74.11 on Monday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, advanced $1.07 to $82.06 per barrel in London. It added $1.05 the previous session to $80.99.

The dollar fell to 132.10 yen from Monday’s 132.67 yen. The euro declined to $1.0708 from $1.0728.

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