Feb 21 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian

markets.

A retreat from record highs on Donald Trump's one-month

anniversary in office put Wall Street on the same shaky ground

as Asian markets that have been feeling the sting from his

tariff threats and tack away from historic security alliances.

It didn't help that Walmart ( WMT ), the world's largest

retailer, gave a gloomy sales and profit outlook anticipating

inflation-weary consumers would tighten their wallets after

several quarters of solid growth. That dovetailed with mounting

concerns about stagflation that were a take-away from the

minutes of January's Federal Open Market Committee meeting on

Wednesday.

A 6.5% slump in Walmart ( WMT ) was a more decisive negative behind

the S&P 500's 0.43% decline than the half-hearted

bullishness behind consecutive record high closes this week.

Some investors see any hit to growth from Trump's tariff

gambits as temporary. While threatened new tariffs on imports

from Canada and Mexico were postponed for a month at the

beginning of February, a 10% levy on all Chinese imports has

been imposed along with tariffs on global steel and aluminum

imports.

The U.S. president's economics team is also devising plans

for reciprocal tariffs on every country that taxes U.S. imports,

along with plans to introduce 25% tariffs on autos,

semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports.

Even as markets hold out hope for his pro-growth agenda,

Trump's policies have brought mounting concerns that growth will

slow and inflation become entrenched as it was during the U.S.

1970s "stagflation" period.

St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem on Thursday added to

the concern, in remarks that highlighted the potentially

difficult choices facing the U.S. central bank.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said he is a bit

nervous about the potential for large-scale tariffs to create a

significant supply shock that could aggravate inflation as

occurred during and just after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The minutes of the Fed's January meeting released on

Wednesday showed central bankers were uncertain about what

Trump's policies mean for inflation when they paused the easing

cycle in place since September.

The minutes also revealed that they discussed slowing or

pausing the quantitative tightening program, which diverted some

flow into Treasuries.

That continued on Thursday with the 10-year yield

slipping 3.2 basis point to 4.503%, helped along by

comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Bloomberg

downplaying the chances of increasing the size of longer dated

debt auctions soon.

Slowing or pausing the program of letting bonds roll off its

balance sheet without replacement may reduce the amount of debt

the Treasury Department needs to offer.

Data showing a moderate rise in weekly unemployment claims

to 219,000 from an upwardly adjusted 214,000 last week showed

the labor market remained on a sound footing. The Conference

Board's Leading Economic Index posted a 0.3% decline in January,

all but erasing the prior two months' gains - the first gains

since February 2022.

With no major data due out on Friday, Asia's markets may be

left to take their cue from trade war fears, and Trump's

reshuffling of the geopolitical deck after denouncing Ukrainian

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a "dictator", and appearing to

side with Russia rather than traditional U.S. security partners

in Europe in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The yen and gold have been major safe-haven beneficiaries of

the emerging Trump agenda. Dollar/yen fell below 150 to its

lowest since early December, while gold got within $50 of $3,000

per ounce.

It won't be a surprise if Asia's markets remain in a

minimize risk mode that Thursday sent Japan's Nikkei

down 1.2%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index down 1.6% and

China's blue-chip CSI300 Index down just 0.3% because

of China's AI disrupter, DeepSeek.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction

to markets on Friday:

- Japan manufacturing and services PMIs (Feb)

- Malaysia CPI (Jan)

- U.S. manufacturing and services PMIs (Feb)

- U of Michigan Sentiment survey (Feb final)