Asia-Pacific stocks set for mixed open after Dow and S&P 500 notch record closing highs

  • Futures pointed to a mixed open for stocks in Asia-Pacific.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed at fresh record highs overnight on Wall Street.
  • Investors will look ahead to U.S. retail sales data, set to be released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific looked set for a mixed start on Tuesday following gains overnight on Wall Street that took the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 to record closing highs.

Futures pointed to a higher open for Japanese stocks. The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 27,695 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 27,660. That compared against the Nikkei 225's last close at 27,523.19.

Australian stocks, on the other hand, looked set to slip. The SPI futures contract was at 7,509.0, against the S&P/ASX 200's last close at 7,582.50. Markets will continue to monitor the Covid situation in Australia, with the country's largest cities currently under lockdown.

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Overnight stateside, the Dow jumped 110.02 points to 35,625.40 while the S&P 500 gained 0.26% to 4,479.71. The Nasdaq Composite lagged as it dipped 0.2% to 14,793.76.

Investors will look ahead to U.S. retail sales data, set to be released Tuesday stateside by the Census Bureau. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones are calling for a 0.3% decline for last month, following June's showed a surprise reading of a 0.6% jump.

Currencies

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 92.628 — still struggling to recover from a recent drop from above 92.8.

The Japanese yen traded at 109.28 per dollar, stronger than levels above 109.5 seen against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7338, following yesterday's drop from above $0.735.

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