Hong Kong — Oil languished near its lowest since the start of the war in Ukraine on Friday on fears of a global recession, though stocks ignored such worries, gaining ahead of US jobs data that will give another clue to the health of the world’s largest economy.
In another warning sign for the global economy, the closely watched part of the US Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes reached 39.2 basis points overnight, the deepest inversion since 2000.On Friday morning, the 10-year yield was 2.6865% and the two-year yield 3.0509, leaving the gap between them at a still large 36.6 basis points.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.74%, helped by gains from index heavyweight TSMC, which rose 1.8%, regaining ground it had lost earlier in the week due to US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.US employment data, due later in the day, is expected to show nonfarm payrolls increased by 250,000 jobs last month, after rising by 372,000 jobs in June.