GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks waver, dollar in doldrums as Trump's tariff deadline looms

Most Asian equity markets struggled on Friday and European stocks looked set to open weaker, despite record highs for Wall Street overnight, as U.S. President Donald Trump's deadline for trade deals loomed next week. The dollar retraced some of Thursday's gains with U.S. markets already shut for the holiday-shortened week, as traders considered the impact of the sweeping spending bill that Trump is expected to sign into law later in the day.

U.S. S&P 500 futures edged down 0.3%, following a 0.8% overnight advance for the cash index to a fresh all-time closing peak. Wall Street is closed on Friday for the Independence Day holiday. Pan-European STOXX 50 futures sank 0.5%.

Trump said Washington will start sending letters to countries on Friday specifying what tariff rates they will face on exports to the United States, a clear shift from earlier pledges to strike scores of individual deals before a July 9 deadline when tariffs could rise sharply. Investors are "now just waiting for July 9," said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG, with the market's lack of optimism for trade deals responsible for some of the equity weakness in export-reliant Asia, particularly Japan and South Korea.

At the same time, Thursday's jobs data showed "the U.S. economy is holding together better than most people expected, which suggests to me that markets can easily continue to do better" from here, Sycamore said. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.1% as of 0550 GMT after flipping between gains and losses in early trading. South Korea's KOSPI sank 1.8%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.4%, although mainland Chinese blue chips added 0.7%. Taiwan's equity benchmark shed early gains to decline 0.9%.

Investors cheered the surprisingly robust jobs report on Thursday, sending all three of the main U.S. equity indexes climbing in a shortened session. Following the close, the House narrowly approved Trump's signature, 869-page bill, which would add $3.4 trillion to the nation's $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

TRADE THE KEY FOCUS IN ASIA Trump said he expected "a couple" more trade agreements after announcing a deal with Vietnam on Wednesday to add to framework agreements with China and Britain as the only successes so far.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that a deal with India is close. However, agreements with Japan and South Korea, once touted by the White House as likely to be among the earliest to be announced, appear to have broken down. "High tariffs on the large economies, including Europe and Japan, will increase the 'sell U.S.' narrative in our view, weighing on USD," Kristina Clifton, a strategist an Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a client note.

"However, news of trade deals ahead of the 9 July deadline would support the USD against the major currencies of GBP, EUR and JPY." The U.S. dollar rallied overnight, taking it up as much as 0.7% versus a basket of major peers after the robust payrolls data saw traders take any expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut this month off the table. It ended Thursday with a 0.4% rise.

On Friday, the U.S. currency gave back a little of those gains, slumping 0.4% to 144.31 yen and sliding 0.3% to 0.7926 Swiss franc. The euro added 0.2% to $1.1783, while sterling gained 0.2% to $1.3681.

The U.S. Treasury bond market is closed on Friday for the holiday, but 10-year yields rose 4.7 basis points (bps) to 4.34% while the 2-year yield jumped 9.3 bps to 3.882%. Gold firmed 0.4% to $3,339 per ounce.

Brent crude futures fell 21 cents to $68.59 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude lost 11 cents to $66.89.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)