*

U.S. Treasury yields rise, Chinese bond yields at 20-year

lows

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Egypt's central bank hikes rates by 600 basis points

*

Bitcoin around $66,500, below Tuesday's new record high

*

Yen strengthens on report March BOJ meeting could be live

*

Oil rises, gold steady near Tuesday's record

(Updates at 0945)

By Alun John and Ankur Banerjee

LONDON/SINGAPORE, March 6 (Reuters) - World shares sat

just below record highs on Wednesday and the 10-year Treasury

yield rose from a one-month low as traders awaited congressional

testimony from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, one of several

potentially market-moving events in the coming days.

Also on the docket are the announcement of the British

budget and U.S job openings data, both on Wednesday, China's

ongoing annual parliament meeting, the European Central Bank

meeting on Thursday, and U.S. non-farm payrolls data on Friday.

In emerging markets, Egypt's central bank let the pound

tumble to record lows and hiked interest rates by 600 basis

points at an unscheduled meeting, marking the start of a

long-awaited devaluation with markets expecting talks between

the government and the International Monetary Fund over an

augmentation of the fund's programme could come to fruition

soon.

Back in developed markets, Europe's broad STOXX 600 index

rose 0.3%, trading just off Monday's all-time high, and

U.S. S&P 500 futures were up 0.3%, pointing to gains after a

sell-off in U.S. large cap names overnight.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan

rose 0.5%, helped by a bounceback in Hong Kong

, where the benchmark was up 1.7%, though Chinese onshore

bluechips dipped.

Beijing on Tuesday, set a widely expected 5% growth target

for 2024 at its key parliament meeting that lacked major

stimulus measures.

BRITISH BUDGET

British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt will begin delivering

his budget speech to Parliament in early afternoon in Britain,

though it was not expected to cause significant ructions in

global markets - unlike the fiscal announcement in 2022 that

brought about the end of Liz Truss's brief period as prime

minister.

"The government doesn't have a lot of wiggle room, so it

will likely be quite dull for sterling in comparison with 2022 -

one silver lining for markets from the Liz Truss budget is that

it has ensured future governments will have to maintain a high

degree of prudence," said Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at

Rabobank.

"Then we have Powell, but there has been so much Fedspeak in

the past weeks, which - alongside the data - has been successful

in pushing back expectations of early interest rate cuts, so I

think payrolls data could have more market impact."

Markets currently expect the Fed to begin cutting rates in

June. At the start of 2024, traders had seen cuts as soon as the

Fed's March 20 meeting.

"It is labour market week in the U.S. we have (job opening

data) today, and payrolls Friday. January was a bit murky and

came as a setback from the six-month trend that we've had, so

what everyone is going to try to understand is whether January

was a fluke," said Samy Chaar, chief economist at Lombard

Odier.

U.S. DATA

Non-farm payrolls in January came in much higher than

expected suggesting growth in the world's largest economy was

still strong, potentially deterring the Fed from cutting rates.

Tuesday data showed U.S. services industry growth slowed

slightly, sending 10-year U.S. Treasury yields to one-month

lows. The benchmark yield ticked up 3 basis points on Wednesday,

to 4.16%, with Germany's 10-year yield likewise moving 3 basis

points higher to 2.35%.

China's 10-year bond yield fell to a 22-year low

on expectations that authorities would keep monetary conditions

easy.

Volatility remained low in currency markets, though the

Japanese yen yen strengthened to 149.73 per dollar, on

reports that some Bank of Japan board members think it would be

appropriate to lift rates from negative territory at the March

meeting.

The euro last was up 0.16% at $1.08730.

In cryptocurrency, bitcoin was hovering around

$66,700, having breached a record high of $69,202 in the

previous session, fuelled by investors pouring money into U.S.

spot exchange-traded crypto products.

Spot gold wobbled and was at $2,126.3 an ounce after

touching an all-time high of $2,141.59 on Tuesday.

U.S. crude rose 0.88% to $78.84 per barrel and Brent

was at $82.66, up 0.74% on the day.