Asia stocks stall on China housing plan, ‘Trump trade' lifts dollar

Asian stocks gave back early gains on Thursday as a housing policy briefing in China underwhelmed investors, while the dollar stood near 2-1/2 month highs on the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency.

Global bonds were firm following a surprisingly large drop in British inflation and as the European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to make its first back-to-back rate cut in 13 years.

Results at chipmaking giant TSMC will be in focus, after a soft outlook from equipment supplier ASML that battered chip stocks.

Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.6% and falling property shares in China unwound the broader market's early-morning gains. The Shanghai Composite was flat and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dialled back a 2% gain to trade 0.6% higher at 0325 GMT.

China's CSI300 real estate index shed 5% to hand back two days of gains.

China's housing minister promised to improve builders' access to funding for finishing thousands of projects and the central bank's deputy governor said cuts to down payments had already improved confidence and sales.

But there was no new gesture to excite markets about a meaningful revival for a sector where a crackdown on developers' borrowing has set off a wave of defaults, while declining prices have shaken households' faith in the asset class.

Property developer Sunac China, taking the recent rally as a cue to raise capital, helped to dampen the mood. Hong Kong-listed mainland developers were down 3%.

"Some investors took the opportunity to cash in on the good news today, leading to a pullback," said Kenny Ng, analyst at China Everbright Securities International.

Australian shares also eased from a record high as mining stocks slipped and iron ore prices fell in Singapore. U.S. equities futures wobbled lower after the main indexes closed at or near record levels on Wednesday.

DOLLAR GAINS
Foreign exchange markets, meanwhile, have sent the dollar higher tracking an improvement in Republican Donald Trump's fortunes in prediction markets for the U.S. presidential race.

Trump's tariff, tax and immigration policies are seen as inflationary, and thus negative for bonds and positive for the dollar. The euro was at $1.0862 and pinned near its lowest since early August. The yen traded at 149.40 per dollar.

"It's probably only in the last two or three days that the concept of a Trump victory is getting the U.S. dollar bid," said Damien McColough, head of rates strategy at Westpac.

"There's also the concept of a strong economy and less Fed rate cuts, so the two merge," he said. Trump and the Republicans are seen as likely to apply a softer touch to cryptocurrency regulation. Bitcoin has rallied in recent sessions.

Bitcoin is up 15% in a week to $67,615. Gold hovered at $2,677 an ounce, just short of record levels.

The Australian dollar bounced from a one-month low in Asia after data showed net employment blowing past forecasts and pushing out rate cut bets.

U.S. retail sales data is due later on Thursday. Data on Wednesday showed that British inflation slowed sharply to an annualised 1.7%, bolstering bets that the Bank of England could cut rates twice before Christmas.

Rates markets have priced a near 90% chance of two 25-basis-point rate cuts before year's end and the news sent sterling down 0.6% to its lowest since Aug. 20, while helping to push gilt and global bond yields lower.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. yields were steady at 4.03% in Asia and two-year yields held at 3.95%. Sterling traded at $1.2993, near its overnight low.

In commodity trade, Brent crude futures steadied at $74.57 a barrel after four sessions of losses. Industry data showed an unexpected drop in U.S. crude stockpiles last week.