Shares edge higher, US Treasury yields weaken as markets weigh Fed chair comments

NEW YORK – Global stocks edged higher while US Treasury yields dipped on Tuesday as markets weighed data showing a persistently tight labor market, and prospects of interest rate cuts after comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

The Fed needs more data before cutting rates to ensure recent weaker inflation readings properly reflect underlying price pressures, Powell told a conference in Portugal on Tuesday.

The Labor Department reported on Tuesday that job openings, a measure of labor demand, rose by 221,000 to 8.140 million on the last day of May, the lowest level since February 2021 and slightly ahead of Wall Street expectations.

The yield on benchmark US 10-year notes fell 4.9 basis points to 4.43%.

“Listening to some of his comments, it seems he’s laying the groundwork for cuts maybe in September, that’s where the market thinks they’re going to start,” said James St. Aubin, chief investment officer at Sierra Mutual Funds in Santa Monica, California.

“We saw a little bit of an increase in job openings, so that seems to suggest that the labor market is hanging in there. Bond yields were lower, I think partly because of what Powell was talking about, you know seeming more of a dovish tone.”

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 0.40% to 806.95. In Europe, the STOXX 600 index fell 0.42% as the relief rally in French shares following the first round of parliamentary elections faded.

On Wall Street, all major indexes finished higher after a choppy session with gains in consumer discretionary, financials, communication services, and consumer staples stocks, while healthcare and energy equities were the biggest drags.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.41% to 39,331.85, the S&P 500 gained 0.62% at 5,509.01 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.84% to 18,028.76.

Crude prices fell as fears of supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Beryl faded.

Brent crude futures settled down 0.42% at USD 86.24 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled at USD 82.81 a barrel, down 0.68%.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.15% to 105.68. The euro was down 0.06% at USD 1.0744.

Against the Japanese yen, the dollar weakened 0.01% at 161.44. It hit 161.745 on Tuesday, the strongest in nearly 38 years, driven mainly by a wide gap in US-Japanese interest rates.

Gold prices slipped. Spot gold lost 0.07% at USD 2,330.03 an ounce, while US gold futures fell 0.08% to USD 2,325.80 an ounce.

(USD 1 = 161.5900 yen)

(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Richard Chang)