U.S. stock market index futures traded lower Tuesday as investors attempted to keep building on early 2023 momentum and weighed the latest earnings results. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 81 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures dropped 0.1%, while Nasdaq-100 futures slid 0.2%. Goldman Sachs reported a smaller-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter, sending the stock down more than 2% in the premarket. The bank’s results were pressured by declines in investment banking and asset management revenues. Meanwhile, rival Morgan Stanley posted better-than-expected numbers thank in part to record wealth management revenue. Those results come after other major banks such as JPMorgan and Citigroup reported mixed quarterly results. Wall Street is coming off positive back-to-back weeks to start the new year. The Nasdaq Composite is leading the way up 5.9%, as investors bought beat-up technology shares amid rising hopes of an improving landscape for growth stocks. The S&P 500 and Dow have advanced 4.2% and 3.5%, respectively, since the start of the year. Gains have come on the back of the first crop of inflation-related data that investors saw as indicating a contracting economy, with hopes that will give the Federal Reserve justification to slow interest rate hikes once again. Last week, the consumer price index for December showed prices cooled 0.1% from the prior month, but prices were still 6.5% higher than the same month a year ago. Asia-Pacific markets mostly traded Tuesday as investors digested a slew of Chinese economic data. In mainland China, the Shenzhen Component ended its session 0.13% higher at 11,800.55 and the Shanghai Composite fell 0.1% to 3,224.24 as data showed nation’s GDP grew by 3% in 2022, marking one of the slowest growth in decades. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.78% in its final hour of trade while the Hang Seng Tech index also shed 0.14%. Stocks in Japan bucked the trend, with the Nikkei 225 rising 1.23% to close at 26,138.68, leading gains in the region as the Bank of Japan kicked off its two-day monetary policy meeting. The yield on Japan’s 10-year treasury continued to test the upper ceiling of the central bank’s tolerance range. The Topix inched up 0.88% to close at 1,902.89. The Japanese yen weakened 0.2% against the U.S. dollar to 128.79, while still hovering around the strongest levels since May, 2022. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.03% to close at 7,386.3 as the nation’s Westpac consumer confidence rose 5% in December from 3% in November, Refinitiv data showed. South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.85% to close at 2,379.39 and the Kosdaq shed 1% to 709.71. Oil prices rose to their highest in two weeks on Tuesday after China posted weak but expectation-beating annual economic growth data and on hopes that a recent shift in its COVID-19 policy will boost fuel demand. Brent crude futures rose $1.14, or 1.4%, to $85.60 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 47 cents, or 0.6%, at $80.33. There was no settlement on Monday because of the U.S. public holiday for Martin Luther King Day. Gold fell for a second session on Tuesday as the dollar ticked up, while investors still sought direction from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate hike path. Spot gold dropped 0.3% to $1,912.29per ounce. The metal closed lower on Monday, after having risen to its highest since April 2022. U.S. gold futures fell 0.34% to $1,915.1. The dollar index traded slightly higher, making gold more expensive for overseas buyers. U.S. yields also rose.
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