Asian stocks looked poised to follow US equities higher, with traders awaiting a raft of economic figures over the next few days for clues on the outlook for global central bank policy.

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Equity futures for Hong Kong, Japan and Australia pointed to gains on Tuesday after the S&P 500 notched its first back-to-back advance in August.

Most major currencies were little changed in early trading. Japan reported an unemployment rate that rose for the first time in four months in July, a slightly negative signal for the central bank and the government. The Japanese currency weakened slightly against the dollar immediately after jobs data.

Strategists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expect the yen to depreciate to levels last seen more than 30 years ago if the Bank of Japan sticks to its dovish stance. Over the next six months the currency is projected to reach 155 per dollar — the weakest since June 1990, according to strategists led by Kamakshya Trivedi. They had previously expected the yen to trade to 135.

August’s risk-off mood showed some signs of abating, but global equities are still poised for their worst month since September.

Employment growth in the US probably cooled and wage increases moderated in August, suggesting a further tempering of inflation risks that reduces the urgency for another Federal Reserve interest-rate hike. Euro-area inflation readings will also be in focus this week, while China’s PMI figures are expected to reinforce that the economy is going from bad to worse.

“Investors want to see economic releases this week that suggest activity is slowing enough to keep further rate hikes at bay, but not too slow to indicate the economy is headed for a recession,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise.

To Rod von Lipsey at UBS Private Wealth Management, the equity market’s pullback in August was a healthy realignment as sentiment had previously been “overly optimistic” about Fed policy and corporate earnings.

Meantime, the auctions of two- and five-year Treasury notes Monday drew the highest yields since before the 2008 financial crisis, reflecting the US bond-market selloff that deepened last week in anticipation of another Fed rate increase.

Government bonds rose slightly in Australia and New Zealand early Tuesday.

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