Photo/Illutration A currency trader passes by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, July 29, 2024. (AP Photo)

Asian shares mostly declined in cautious trading Tuesday ahead of central bank meetings around the world.

The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are holding monetary policy meetings this week.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.5% in morning trading to 38,268.72. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 decreased 0.9% to 7,915.10. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.7% to 2,747.06. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.8% to 17,093.32, while the Shanghai Composite declined 0.7% to 2,871.62.

“Markets may be having a tough time positioning the central bank meetings this week,” said Jing Yi Tan of Mizuho Bank.

In Japan, the government reported the nation’s unemployment rate in June stood at 2.5%, inching down from 2.6% the previous month, and marking the first improvement in five months.

U.S. stock indexes drifted to a mixed finish Monday to kick off a week full of earnings reports from Wall Street’s most influential companies and a Federal Reserve meeting on interest rates.

The S&P 500 edged up 4.44 points, or 0.1%, to 5,463.54, coming off its first back-to-back weekly losses since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 49.41, or 0.1%, to 40,539.93, and the Nasdaq composite added 12.32, or 0.1%, to 17,370.20.

ON Semiconductor helped lead the market with a jump of 11.5% after the supplier to the auto and other industries reported stronger profit for the spring than analysts expected. McDonald’s rose 3.7% despite reporting profit and revenue for the latest quarter that fell shy of forecasts. Analysts said its performance at U.S. restaurants wasn’t as bad as some investors had feared.

They helped offset slides for oil-and-gas companies, which were some of the heaviest weights on the market after the price of oil sank back toward where it was two months ago. ConocoPhillips lost 1.6%, and Exxon Mobil slipped 1% amid worries about how much crude China’s faltering economy will burn.

Several of Wall Street’s biggest names are set to report their results later this week: Microsoft on Tuesday, Meta Platforms on Wednesday and Apple and Amazon on Thursday. Their stock movements carry extra weight on Wall Street because they are among the market’s largest by total value.

Such Big Tech stocks drove the S&P 500 to dozens of records this year, in part on investors’ frenzy around artificial intelligence technology, but they ran out of momentum this month amid criticism they have grown too expensive, and as alternatives began to look more attractive. Last week, investors found profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet underwhelming, which raised concerns that other stocks in what is known as the “Magnificent Seven” group of Big Tech stocks could also fail to impress.

“AI hype days are over,” according to Bank of America strategists led by Savita Subramanian. “Time to show monetization.”

What has helped support the U.S. stock market even as Big Tech behemoths weakened has been strength from other areas that had been beaten down by high interest rates meant to get inflation under control. Smaller stocks in particular soared on expectations that slowing inflation will get the Federal Reserve to soon begin cutting interest rates.

That pattern unwound a bit Monday, as the majority of Big Tech stocks rose while the smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index decreased 1.1%. But the Russell 2000 is still up by a market-leading 9.2% for the month so far.

The Fed will hold its latest policy meeting on interest rates this week, and an announcement will come Wednesday. Virtually no one expects a move then, but the widespread expectation is that it will begin easing at its following meeting in September.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.17% from 4.19% late Friday. It was as high as 4.70% in April.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude lost 19 cents to $75.62 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 19 cents to $79.59.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched up to 154.05 Japanese yen from 154.00. The euro cost $1.0816, down from $1.0826.

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