Stock market today: Global shares mostly rise to start a week full of earnings, Fed meet

TOKYO: Global shares mostly rose on Tuesday, as investors kept a close watch on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week.

France's CAC 40 slipped 0.2% in early trading to 8,052.68, while Germany's DAX fell 0.3% to 18,062.63. Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.3% to 8,170.81. US shares were set to drift lower with Dow futures inching down nearly 0.1% to 38,535.00. S&P 500 futures lost 0.1% to 5,141.00.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 jumped 1.2% to finish at 38,405.66, bouncing back from a national holiday. Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.4% to 7,664.10. South Korea's Kospi added 0.2% to 2,692.06. Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged up 0.1% to 17,763.03, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.3% to 3,104.82.

In Japan, the government reported stronger-than-expected gains in industrial production with a seasonally adjusted 3.8% rise in March from the previous month.

"Weak manufacturing weighed on growth in the first quarter of the year, but we believe that consumption is likely to improve on the back of a healthy labour market," said Min Joo Kang, senior economist at ING.

Markets are also eyeing the US Federal Reserve in addition to a slew of earnings reports that about a third of the companies in the S&P 500, including heavyweights Amazon and Apple, are reporting this week.

Reports of stubbornly high inflation have traders expecting fewer interest rate cuts this year. The Federal Reserve announces its latest policy decision on Wednesday, and could offer clues on when the rate cuts might come. Its main interest rate is at its highest level since 2001. Fed Chair Jerome Powell could offer more colour in his news conference following the central bank's decision.

Also on investors' minds is the jobs report hitting Wall Street on Friday that could show hiring by US employers cooled in April and that growth in workers' wages held relatively steady.

The hope on Wall Street is that the job market will remain strong enough to help the economy avoid a recession but not so strong that it feeds upward pressure into inflation.

In energy trading, benchmark US crude added 8 cents to $82.71 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 3 cents to $88.43 a barrel.

In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 156.87 Japanese yen from 156.28 yen. The euro cost $1.0702, down from $1.0725.

By RSS/AP