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By Alden Bentley
(Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.
A retreat from record highs on Donald Trump's one-month anniversary in office put Wall Street on the same shaky ground as Asian markets that have been feeling the sting from his tariff threats and tack away from historic security alliances.
It didn't help that Walmart, the world's largest retailer, gave a gloomy sales and profit outlook anticipating inflation-weary consumers would tighten their wallets after several quarters of solid growth. That dovetailed with mounting concerns about stagflation that were a take-away from the minutes of January's Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Wednesday.
A 6.5% slump in Walmart was a more decisive negative behind the S&P 500's 0.43% decline than the half-hearted bullishness behind consecutive record high closes this week.
Some investors see any hit to growth from Trump's tariff gambits as temporary. While threatened new tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico were postponed for a month at the beginning of February, a 10% levy on all Chinese imports has been imposed along with tariffs on global steel and aluminum imports.
The U.S. president's economics team is also devising plans for reciprocal tariffs on every country that taxes U.S. imports, along with plans to introduce 25% tariffs on autos, semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports.
Even as markets hold out hope for his pro-growth agenda, Trump's policies have brought mounting concerns that growth will slow and inflation become entrenched as it was during the U.S. 1970s "stagflation" period.
St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem on Thursday added to the concern, in remarks that highlighted the potentially difficult choices facing the U.S. central bank.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said he is a bit nervous about the potential for large-scale tariffs to create a significant supply shock that could aggravate inflation as occurred during and just after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The minutes of the Fed's January meeting released on Wednesday showed central bankers were uncertain about what Trump's policies mean for inflation when they paused the easing cycle in place since September.
The minutes also revealed that they discussed slowing or pausing the quantitative tightening program, which diverted some flow into Treasuries.
That continued on Thursday with the 10-year yield slipping 3.2 basis point to 4.503%, helped along by comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Bloomberg downplaying the chances of increasing the size of longer dated debt auctions soon.
Slowing or pausing the program of letting bonds roll off its balance sheet without replacement may reduce the amount of debt the Treasury Department needs to offer.
Data showing a moderate rise in weekly unemployment claims to 219,000 from an upwardly adjusted 214,000 last week showed the labor market remained on a sound footing. The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index posted a 0.3% decline in January, all but erasing the prior two months' gains - the first gains since February 2022.
With no major data due out on Friday, Asia's markets may be left to take their cue from trade war fears, and Trump's reshuffling of the geopolitical deck after denouncing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a "dictator", and appearing to side with Russia rather than traditional U.S. security partners in Europe in talks to end the Ukraine war.
The yen and gold have been major safe-haven beneficiaries of the emerging Trump agenda. Dollar/yen fell below 150 to its lowest since early December, while gold got within $50 of $3,000 per ounce.
It won't be a surprise if Asia's markets remain in a minimize risk mode that Thursday sent Japan's Nikkei down 1.2%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index down 1.6% and China's blue-chip CSI300 Index down just 0.3% because of China's AI disrupter, DeepSeek.
Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Friday:
- Japan manufacturing and services PMIs (Feb)
- Malaysia CPI (Jan)
- U.S. manufacturing and services PMIs (Feb)
- U of Michigan Sentiment survey (Feb final)
(Reporting by Alden Bentley; Editing by Byll Berkrot)
