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U.S. stock futures rose slightly in overnight trading on Monday as investors prepared for the next batch of

 corporate earnings.

Dow futures rose 65 points. S&P 500 futures gained 0.14% and Nasdaq 100 futures popped 0.13%.

Earnings season continues on Tuesday with streaming giant Netflix after the bell. Wall Street analysts expected Netflix to remain a winner in the streaming space even as the pandemic recovery improves.

Other big reports from Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Travelers land before the market opens, with CSX and Interactive Brokers releasing results after the bell.

 

·         Asia markets mixed as Japan drops 2%; China keeps benchmark lending rate unchanged

Mainland Chinese stocks, on the other hand, rose by the afternoon. The Shanghai composite advanced 0.29% while the Shenzhen component gained 0.451%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was flat.

The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia also declined 0.56%. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.44%.

Elsewhere, the Nifty 50 in India gained 0.75%. The country’s Covid cases continue to climb, with 273,810 new daily infections registered on Monday.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.27% higher.

On the economic data front, China on Tuesday kept the one-year loan prime rate (LPR) unchanged at 3.85% and five-year LPR at 4.65%. That was in line with predictions from a majority of traders and analysts in a Reuters poll, who had expected no change to either the one-year or five-year LPR.

 

·         Japan stocks stumble as return to coronavirus lockdowns looms

Japanese shares fell on Tuesday by their most in a month, weighed down by worries that possible reintroduction of COVID-19 lockdowns in the country’s biggest cities would slow the economic recovery.

Selling was seen across almost all sectors, with only one of the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s 33 industry sub-indexes closing higher and just 16 stocks up on the benchmark Nikkei share average.

The Nikkei settled down 1.97% at 29,100.38, its worst since March 24, while the broader Topix dropped 1.55% to 1,926.25 in its biggest slide in four weeks.

 

·         European markets pull back slightly amid lackluster global sentiment; tobacco stocks tumble

The pan-European Stoxx 600 shed 0.2% in early trade, with household goods dropping 1.1% to lead losses while autos bucked the trend to gain 0.8%.

Investors in Europe will be keeping an eye on earnings reports in the region; these come from Kering, Danone, Atos and Associated British Foods, which presents interim results for Primark, while Rio Tinto releases a first-quarter operations review.

At the bottom of the Stoxx 600, British American Tobacco slumped more than 7%, leading a broad decline for tobacco companies after a report that the Biden administration is considering a requirement for reduced nicotine content in all cigarettes sold in the U.S. Imperial brands also fell 5.9%.

 

Reference: CNBC, Reuters