Asia stocks rise with US futures as sentiment improves

Wall Street wrapped up a chaotic week with a turnaround in stocks after a selloff that whipsawed some of the most-speculative assets of the market, testing investors’ nerves after a torrid rally.

US equity-index futures rose along with Asian shares after a volatile week as optimism grew over potential Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts.

Futures on the S&P 500 advanced 0.4% as the new week began, after the underlying gauge gained Friday to close out a turbulent stretch marked by a selloff in riskier corners of the market. Contracts for the Nasdaq 100 index rose 0.6%. Shares in Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea advanced, while mainland China was flat. Japan is closed for a holiday.

Oil dropped after posting the biggest weekly loss since early October, as traders weighed the prospect of a Ukraine-Russia peace deal that could increase crude flows into an already well-supplied market. Gold edged lower for a third day.

Risk appetite improved on Wall Street after reports Friday that US officials were holding early talks on whether to allow Nvidia Corp. to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China. The market also got an injection of hope after Fed Bank of New York President John Williams suggested a near-term rate cut remains a possibility.

Wall Street wrapped up a chaotic week with a turnaround in stocks after a selloff that whipsawed some of the most-speculative assets of the market, testing investors’ nerves after a torrid rally.

“Given the moves that we saw last week, and the potential for more volatility in the coming days, investors will be understandably hesitant to throw the kitchen sink on positive risk sentiment,” said Nick Twidale, chief market analyst at AT Global Markets.

Markets saw a resurgence in volatility last week as doubts over the Fed’s ability to cut rates unsettled investors. Assets favored by retail momentum traders — including cryptocurrencies and AI-related stocks — swung sharply, while a selloff in Asian tech shares drove the MSCI Asia Pacific Index to its steepest weekly drop since April.

Treasuries climbed on Friday after Williams, seen as a close ally to Chair Jerome Powell, said he sees room to ease policy in the near term, as downside risks to employment have increased while upside risks to inflation have eased. While traders boosted bets on a December cut, officials remained split on whether to lower rates, with Boston Fed chief Susan Collins indicating her mind isn’t made up about a policy move.

Traders are now pricing in more than a 60% chance of a rate cut in December. Earlier this month, the odds of a quarter-point rate cut next month was below 50%.

Attention is on the crypto market after volatility spiked last week and Bitcoin slid.

On Monday, Bitcoin fluctuated after a temporary weekend reprieve amid headwinds from macroeconomic uncertainty and outflows from the exchange traded funds. Sentiment remained jittery with traders watching $85,200 as a key support level.

The largest cryptocurrency traded around $88,000, paring most of its earlier losses after falling as much as 2.3%. It had jumped more than 4% on Sunday.

“The recent selloff and volatility is somewhat linked to other volatile assets or highly leveraged assets such as Bitcoin,” said Jun Bei Liu, co-founder of Ten Cap said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

Elsewhere, the euro and pound were steady as fiscal pressures in Europe also take focus. France’s National Assembly rejected part of the 2026 budget in the early hours of Saturday morning, highlighting the uncertainties surrounding Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s approach to tackling the bloated deficit.

The UK government at the weekend said it would freeze rail fares in the budget due Wednesday. It’s one of several affordability measures expected as Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves seeks to offset the political pain of having to raise as much as £25 billion ($33 billion) in tax hikes and spending restraint to stabilize the UK’s public finances.

In other geopolitical news, the China-Japan spat continued, with China writing a letter to the UN. Also, Japan’s defense minister, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post were on track as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing over the East Asian island.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump’s proposed Nov. 27 deadline to secure Ukraine’s support for a US-backed peace plan isn’t set in stone and could drift into the following week. Rubio’s note of caution followed US-Ukrainian talks Sunday in Geneva that both sides described as making progress toward a deal.