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US stock futures ease, tech in focus

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Dollar at two-week lows, traders wary of next Trump moves

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Oil, copper fall due to concern over Chinese demand

By Amanda Cooper

LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Global stocks steadied on

Thursday, as a rally fuelled by Donald Trump's spending plans

for artificial intelligence infrastructure fizzled out and

caution set in over what the new U.S. president's next moves on

trade might be.

Weekly data showed the number of Americans filing for

unemployment benefit rose a little more than expected in the

most recent week, which dented the dollar and gave stocks an

uplift.

The dominant factor for markets right now is what Trump

plans to do about imposing tariffs. With no new detail for now,

price action was more subdued than at the start of the week.

"Obviously, it's early days ... We have seen no surprises so

far," Guy Miller, chief markets strategist at Zurich Insurance

Group, said.

"What we've seen had largely been anticipated, if anything,

some restraint was shown. So, that has allowed the financial

markets to reprice to some extent, allowing bond yields to come

back in again and risk assets to move higher," he said.

U.S. stock index futures were down 0.2-0.5%,

indicating a modestly lower start on Wall Street later, while

U.S. 10-year Treasury yields were up 3.4 basis points at 4.633%,

below last week's 14-month high of 4.809%.

In Europe, the STOXX 600, which hit a record high

on Wednesday, edged up 0.2%, as some of the selling pressure

abated on technology shares, which had soared after

Trump announced a $500 billion private-sector AI infrastructure

investment plan.

The joint venture, which involves Oracle, OpenAI

and SoftBank, initially turbo-charged a rally in global

stock markets, which drew further support from upbeat earnings.

On Asian markets overnight, Japan's Nikkei gained

0.8%. Shares in SoftBank jumped 5% following Trump's

unveiling of the Stargate AI joint venture.

In China, the government announced plans to channel hundreds

of billions of yuan of investment from state-owned insurers into

shares, just after Trump said he was proposing to slap a 10%

punitive duty on Chinese imports.

The CSI300 blue-chip index ended the day up 0.18%,

while the yuan weakened against the dollar to 7.289 in offshore

trading.

TARIFF THREATS

Action in currency markets was largely subdued on Thursday

after a volatile few sessions since Trump's return to the White

House, driven by his pronouncements on tariffs in the early part

of the week.

Trump has said he plans to impose duties on imports from

Mexico, China and Canada from Feb. 1 and has said he will apply

tariffs on imports from the European Union.

In the absence of any more specifics, the dollar struggled

to push higher and Thursday's data fed into the idea among

traders that the Federal Reserve may have more room to lower

rates this year.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the currency

against six others, languished near a two-week low of 108.26.

The euro was steady at $1.0405, as was sterling

at $1.232.

"The threat of tariffs continues to hang over markets, but

the rapidly declining half life of headlines shows you the

market is already numb to the shenanigans," said Brent Donnelly,

president at Spectra Markets.

Ahead of the Bank of Japan's policy decision on Friday, the

dollar rose to a one-week high against the yen at

156.76. Markets have already fully priced in a 25-basis-point

rate hike at the conclusion of the meeting.

In commodities, oil prices edged into positive territory,

but remained below $80 a barrel, under pressure from concern

over how Trump's proposed tariffs could affect global economic

growth and demand for energy.

Brent crude futures were last up 0.14% on the day at

$79.11 a barrel, having fallen earlier by as much as 0.5%, while

copper prices fell 0.4% to $9,185 a metric ton.

(Additional reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe in London. Editing by

Mark Potter)