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U.S. stock futures decline as focus shifts to spending

bill

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Trade deals elusive ahead of higher tariff rates on July 9

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Trading thinned by Wall Street, Treasuries holidays for

July 4

By Kevin Buckland

TOKYO, July 4 (Reuters) - Most Asian equity markets

struggled on Friday, 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 week, as traders considered the

impact of the sweeping spending bill Trump is about to sign into

law.

Japan's Nikkei rose 0.3% as of 0152 GMT after

flipping between gains and losses in early trading.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng slumped 1.3%, while mainland

Chinese blue chips edged slightly lower.

Taiwan's equity benchmark shed early gains to

decline 0.2%. South Korea's KOSPI sank more than 1%.

U.S. S&P 500 futures edged down 0.2%, following a

0.8% overnight advance for the cash index to a fresh all-time

closing peak. Wall Street is closed Friday for Independence Day.

Investors cheered a surprisingly robust jobs report on

Thursday in 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.

Trump also said he would start sending out letters to trade

partners with their tariff rates, as deals remained elusive

ahead of the July 9 deadline.

The U.S. President said he expected "a couple" more

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.

"It is now just waiting for July 9," said Tony Sycamore, an

analyst at IG, with the market's lack of optimism for deals

responsible for some of the equity weakness around the region,

particularly Japan and South Korea.

At the same time, Thursday's jobs data shows "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.

The jobs data saw traders take any expectations for a

Federal Reserve interest rate cut this month off the table.

The U.S. dollar rallied, taking it up as much as 0.7% versus

a basket of major peers on Thursday before it pared its

advance to end the session with a 0.4% rise.

Early on Friday, the U.S. currency gave back a little of

those gains, slipping 0.2% to 144.62 yen and edging

down 0.1% to 0.7942 Swiss franc.

The euro added 0.1% to $1.1766, while sterling

traded flat at $1.3650.

The U.S. Treasury bond market is closed 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 inched up 0.1% to $3,329.54 per ounce.

Brent crude futures rose 1 cent to $68.81 a barrel,

while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude firmed 3 cents

to $67.03.