Asia stocks fall as US futures rally on tech

Asian stocks fell for a fifth day after US shares declined in an echo of the prior session as concern over American regional banks outweighed better-than-expected technology earnings.

Equities in Japan and Australia, and futures for Hong Kong stocks all fell, placing a gauge of the region’s equities on course for its longest run of daily losses this year.

Contracts for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 edged higher after results from Meta Platforms Inc. beat analyst estimates, pushing its shares 11 percent higher in after-hours trading.

The advance for US futures followed a second daily decline for the S&P 500 Index with all sectors except technology falling. The Nasdaq 100 edged higher, helped along by upbeat earnings from Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp. late Tuesday.

The yen stayed in a narrow range as the Bank of Japan began a two-day policy meeting, the first with Kazuo Ueda as governor. The dollar weakened versus most of its Group-of-10 peers.

Treasuries edged up in early Asian trade as investors waited for advance US GDP data to gauge the strength of the US economy.

First Republic Bank shares tumbled a further 30 percent Wednesday after losing almost half their value the day before. The US regional lender faces potential curbs on borrowing from the Federal Reserve.

The potential for a tightening of credit conditions linked to the banking turmoil may prompt the Fed to adjust the pace of its interest-rate increases, Evercore ISI’s head of central bank strategy Krishna Guha wrote in a note.

“We cannot rule out the possibility developments around First Republic could unfold in a manner that would lead the FOMC to skip May, while signaling a hike in June,” he said.

US jobless claims and GDP data due Thursday will help identify the health of the US economy before the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the core PCE deflator, due Friday.

Elsewhere in markets, oil inched higher after a Wednesday fall, gold was flat, and Bitcoin climbed.

The yen stayed in a narrow range as the Bank of Japan began a two-day policy meeting, the first with Kazuo Ueda as governor. The dollar weakened versus most of its Group-of-10 peers.

Treasuries edged up in early Asian trade as investors waited for advance US GDP data to gauge the strength of the US economy.

First Republic Bank shares tumbled a further 30% Wednesday after losing almost half their value the day before. The US regional lender faces potential curbs on borrowing from the Federal Reserve.

The potential for a tightening of credit conditions linked to the banking turmoil may prompt the Fed to adjust the pace of its interest-rate increases, Evercore ISI’s head of central bank strategy Krishna Guha wrote in a note.

“We cannot rule out the possibility developments around First Republic could unfold in a manner that would lead the FOMC to skip May, while signaling a hike in June,” he said.

US jobless claims and GDP data due Thursday will help identify the health of the US economy before the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the core PCE deflator, due Friday.

Elsewhere in markets, oil inched higher after a Wednesday fall, gold was flat, and Bitcoin climbed.