Asian shares mixed, oil steady ahead of July 4 holiday in US

Shares were mixed in Asia on Monday while U.S. futures fell ahead of the July 4 holiday in the U.S.

Benchmarks rose in Tokyo, Shanghai and Sydney but fell in Hong Kong and Seoul. Oil prices were steady after surging on Friday, AP reported.

Shares in Japanese telecoms carrier KDDI Corp. fell as much as 4% Monday as the company grappled with outages that began early Saturday, affecting services to nearly 40 million people.

The company said Monday that most data-transmission services had been restored, but phone calls were still affected by the problems which KDDI said were technical issues with switching systems. As of mid-afternoon on Monday, KDDI’s shares were down 1.8%.

Last week was the fourth losing week in the last five for Wall Street as investors fret over high inflation and the possibility that higher interest rates could bring on a recession.

Economic data over the last few weeks has shown that inflation remains hot and the economy is slowing. The latter has raised hopes on Wall Street that the Fed will eventually ease off its push to raise rates, which have been weighing on stocks, especially pricier sectors like technology.

Annual inflation in the eurozone’s 19 countries hit 8.6% in June, surging past the 8.1% recorded in May, according to the latest numbers published Friday by the European Union statistics agency, Eurostat. Inflation is at its highest level since recordkeeping for the euro began in 1997.

On Friday, the S&P 500 rose 1.1%, recovering from early losses to close at 3,825.33. The gain snapped a four-day losing streak for the benchmark index, which still posted its fourth losing week in the last five.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1% to 31,097.26, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.9% to 11,127.85.

The S&P 500 closed out its worst quarter since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. Its performance in the first half of 2022 was the worst since the first six months of 1970. It has been in a bear market since last month, meaning an extended decline of 20% or more from its most recent peak.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps set mortgage rates, was steady at 2.89% after falling Friday from Thursday’s 2.97%.

Financial markets in the U.S. will be closed on Monday for Independence Day.

Wall Street remains concerned about the risk of a recession as economic growth slows and the Federal Reserve aggressively hikes interest rates. The Fed is raising rates to purposefully slow economic growth to help cool inflation, but could potentially go too far and bring on a recession.