GLOBAL MARKETS-Asia shares mostly lower amid rising coronavirus cases, Washington turmoil

By Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Asian stocks were mostly lower
on Tuesday, tracking Wall Street declines as political turmoil
in Washington and rising coronavirus cases worldwide weighed on
sentiment ahead of the start of the quarterly earnings season.
Political uncertainty dominated trading as House Democrats
introduced a resolution to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump,
accusing him of inciting insurrection following a violent attack
on the Capitol last week. Several big tech giants, including Twitter Inc TWTR.N ,
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O , Facebook Inc
FB.O and Apple Inc AAPL.O , have taken actions against Trump
and his network of supporters, as concerns mounted over the risk
of continued violence.
Twitter's stock tumbled 6.4% on Monday after the
micro-blogging site permanently suspended Trump's account last
Friday.
Investors also kept an eye on the continued spread of the
coronavirus globally as cases surpassed 90 million on Monday,
according to a Reuters tally. "The weakness was led by tech and I think the banning of
Trump's account by Twitter and Amazon stepping up against Parler
all brought a renewed focus on increased regulation and reining
in on tech," said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital
in New York.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 slipped 0.48%, South Korea's KOSPI
.K11 fell 0.91% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index futures
.HSI HSIc1 lost 0.54%.
Defying the broader selloff, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 .AXJO
rose 0.24%.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell
0.29%, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.66% and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC dropped 1.25%.
Investors are expecting guidance on the extent to which
executives see a rebound in 2021 earnings and the economy from
results and conference calls from JP Morgan, Citi C.N and
Wells Fargo WFC.N Friday. Meanwhile, longer-term Treasury yields were at their highest
since March before new long-dated supply coming this week and on
speculation of more U.S. fiscal stimulus as Democrats will have
control of Congress and the White House. "People are optimistic to see the yield curve steepening and
it could help spreads and net interest margins for banks," Hayes
said.
Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR last fell 11/32 in price
to yield 1.1443%, from 1.107% late on Friday.
The spread between the two-year and 10-year Treasury yields
US2US10=TWEB brushed against 100 basis points to hit its
steepest since July 2017.
The climb in yields in turn offered some support to the
dollar, which rose to its highest in over two weeks against a
basket of currencies.
The U.S. dollar index =USD rose 0.256%, with the euro
EUR= down 0.54% to $1.2152. The Japanese yen weakened 0.24%
versus the greenback at 104.20 per dollar, while Sterling GBP=
was last trading at $1.3516, down 0.35% on the day.
Crude oil prices fell, hit by renewed concerns about global
fuel demand amid tough coronavirus lockdowns across the globe,
as well as the stronger dollar.
U.S. crude CLc1 recently fell 0.1% to $52.19 per barrel
and Brent LCOc1 was at $55.61, down 0.68% on the day.
Safe-have spot gold XAU= dropped 0.2% to $1,844.27 an
ounce. Silver XAG= fell 1.70% to $24.94.

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