rose 1.5%, its best day in two weeks, as investors cheered the weaker currency that helps Japanese exporters. Japanese government bonds had their best rally in a month.
U.S. government bonds were steady with the yield on the 10-year little changed at 2.8282%, ahead of U.S. growth data. The 10-year yield hit its highest level since 2018 last week. An advance reading of first quarter U.S. GDP is expected to show an annualised 1.1% growth rate, down sharply from 6.9% in the 2021 fourth quarter. That would be the slowest since the recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.Set against that backdrop is investors' conviction that U.S. rates are rising and that next week's Federal Reserve meeting will bring the first of several consecutive 50-basis-point hikes.
Oil prices edged lower on caution about dwindling fuel demand in China caused by COVID-19 restrictions, with Brent crude futures down 0.5% and U.S. crude lower by 0.4%. Spot gold prices hit their lowest level in two months and were last down 0.2% as the rally in the dollar weighed on the precious metal.Reporting by Tom Wilson, Samuel Indyk and Saikat Chatterjee in London and Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Kim Coghill and Tomasz Janowski