GLOBAL MARKETS-Asian shares set to edge up, after Wall Street tech rally

By Alwyn Scott
NEW YORK, March 31 (Reuters) - Asian stocks were set to edge
higher early on Thursday after big tech rallied on Wall Street
and as President Joe Biden announced a multi-trillion-dollar
infrastructure investment plan.
The dollar, meanwhile, hit a one-year high against the yen
and multi-month peaks with other currencies as investors bet
U.S. fiscal stimulus and aggressive vaccinations will help the
United States lead a global pandemic recovery.
Tech stocks were likely to push Australian shares higher at
least initially on Thursday in Asia, but optimism could be
cooled by concerns about inflation and interest rates.
Australian S&P/ASX 200 futures YAPcm1 rose 0.28% in early
trading, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index futures .HSI
HSIc1 rose 0.81%.
Japan's Nikkei 225 futures NKc1 fell 0.10%.
Big tech surged on Wall Street as Apple Inc AAPL.O ,
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Tesla Inc
TLSA.O and Facebook Inc FB.O rose. The Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC gained 201.48 points, or 1.54%, to 13,246.87.
The S&P 500 .SPX gained 14.34 points, or 0.36%, to
3,972.89 to a fresh peak.
But the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 85.41
points, or 0.26%, to 32,981.55.
Biden's $2 trillion plan to create more affordable housing,
rebuild roads, bridges and railways and provide incentives for
electric vehicles, unveiled on Wednesday, faces a tough slog in
the U.S. Congress, where Democrats hold a slim majority.
The size of this further stimulus is probably already baked
into prices, said Mark Hampton, investment adviser at Hamilton
Hindin Greene in Wellington.
Economic strengthening is "a bit of good news being bad
news... making people wonder how long we're going to live in
this low-interest-rate, low-inflationary environment," he said.
Though bond yields eased in U.S. trading, the shift was
mainly portfolio rebalancing. Yields have been on a long march
higher, with 10-year yields US10YT=TWEB on course for their
biggest quarterly rise since the fourth quarter of 2016.
The dollar index =USD fell 0.038%, with the euro EUR=
down 0.03% to $1.1725.
The Japanese yen weakened 0.01% versus the greenback at
110.71 per dollar.

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