Digesting Biden exit, markets focus on earnings, data

Washington, World markets steadied on Tuesday as investors looked beyond Joe Biden's exit from the U.S. presidential race, turning their focus to corporate earnings and economic data. Biden's exit from the race has cast some doubt on a Republican victory under Donald Trump and could see investors unwind trades betting that such a win would add to U.S. fiscal and inflationary pressures. Vice President Kamala Harris will campaign in the battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday as the Democrats's presumed nominee. The pan-European STOXX index was up 0.1% while U.S. futures were down 0.2% following a 1.1% rise in the SandP 500 on Monday. The U.S. dollar, which had edged higher on Monday, was unchanged against a basket of currencies on Tuesday. "Markets appear to be in a bit of a holding pattern this morning having now digested the weekend news flow of Biden quitting the presidential race," said Michael Brown, senior strategist at broker Pepperstone in London. Investors will now focus on whether the polls show a closer race against Trump than when Biden was the Democratic candidate, Brown said. "You'd expect that, were polls to narrow, and the race be seen as a closer contest, volatility to tick higher, and perhaps some downside creep into the equity space too," he added. Still, Asian markets remained supported on Tuesday, with Taiwan's benchmark snapping five sessions of losses, rising over 2%. That tracked a broader rebound in chipmaking shares recovering some of the $100 billion in market value that was wiped off Taiwan's TSMC the world's largest contract chipmaker, over the previous few sessions. The stock had come under pressure following Trump's comments that Taiwan should pay to be defended and accusing the island of stealing American chip business. Focus was firmly on earnings on Tuesday, with Tesla and Alphabet due to report after the session close in New York, beginning the season for the "Magnificent Seven" megacap group of stocks. Source: Bahrain News Agency