Stocks, bonds fumble for footing as focus turns to payrolls

By Xie Yu HONG KONG (Reuters) - Stock and bond markets attempted to steady on Tuesday, as investors turned their focus to this week’s U.S. labour market report, to gauge if interest rate hikes that have been priced in around the world are justified. By mid-morning, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.4%, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index rose nearly 1%, in part helped by a fresh round of weakness in the Japanese yen. Wall Street indexes fell on Monday, but the pace of selling was reduced and U.S. stock futures were steady in Asia. Besides interest rates, the he…

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