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By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – Visa was sued on Tuesday by consumers who said the card payments network failed to make prepaid “Vanilla” gift cards less likely to being drained by thieves.

Ira Schuman, who leads the proposed class action in the White Plains, New York, federal court, said he bought eight $500 Vanilla cards as holiday gifts for his employees in 2022 and 2023, only to learn later that cards had been emptied.

According to the complaint, the non-reloadable debit cards are sold at CVS, Target, Walgreens and other grocers and retailers in thin cardboard sleeves that thieves can open and, after recording account information, reseal without being detected.

Thieves can then monitor http://www.vanillagift.com to learn when money has been loaded, and make purchases using the stolen account information, the complaint said. The scam is known as “card draining.”

Schuman, of Scarsdale, New York, said Visa and two Vanilla card issuers knew or should have known that their cards were vulnerable to tampering but did not add security features, and did not provide refunds when money was stolen.

Visa and the other defendants, Incomm Financial Services and Pathward Financial, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In November, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sued Incomm, Pathward and two card issuers over the Vanilla cards. Visa, based in San Francisco, was not named as a defendant.

Tuesday’s lawsuit accused the defendants of violating a New York state law against deceptive and unfair consumer practices.

It seeks compensatory and punitive damages for people who bought Visa-branded Vanilla cards in New York since Jan. 30, 2021 and saw their funds drained.

The case is Schuman v Visa USA Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 24-00666.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)

By Herbert Lash and Alun John

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Global stocks surged on Monday, with the S&P 500 closing at a new record close and European shares hitting a two-year high, as markets slashed ambitious bets at the end of 2023 on interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks.

MSCI’s all-country world index also climbed to a fresh two-year high, closing up 0.6%, lifted by the S&P 500’s sixth all-time closing high so far in January.

A slight gain in Europe’s broad STOXX 600 index after its biggest weekly gain in three months last week also helped advance the global gauge of stock performance.

The equity rally comes at the start of a week packed with big corporate earnings, European inflation data, Federal Reserve and Bank of England policy meetings and U.S. employment data that could shape the market’s direction for months to come.

Investors are trying to understand the outlook for the U.S. economy as it is unlikely to require the deep interest rate cuts by the Fed it has priced in, said Phillip Nelson, head of asset allocation at NEPC, an investment consultant for institutional investors in Boston.

Absent geopolitical shocks, the U.S. economy will grow better than expected with just a few areas underperforming, he said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.59%, the S&P 500 gained 0.76% and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.12%. With the S&P 500 up 3.3% in January, BlackRock raised its overall view on U.S. stocks to “overweight” from “neutral.”

Mega cap earnings will be scrutinized this week after disappointing forecasts from Intel and Tesla last week deepened concerns about the valuation of the mega growth stocks that spearheaded the rally at year-end 2023.

Microsoft, which through its partnership with Open AI has piqued market interest about artificial intelligence in 2023, is expected to report a 15.8% jump in quarterly revenue on Tuesday. The stock closed up 1.4%.

The euro sank to almost a seven-week low, breaking below the 1.08 mark, as the market dialed back expectations of the extent of rate cuts this year by the Fed and European Central Bank (ECB), said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York.

“We’re still reacting and correcting to what happened in Q4 last year,” Chandler said.

“The market got in its head there’d be aggressive rate cuts not just by the Fed, but by the Bank of England and the ECB. The dollar sold off in that environment,” he said.

The dollar index retreated, down 0.09%, while the euro slid 0.18% at $1.0832 after falling to $1.0797. The euro may be poised for a weak February, as the single currency has declined versus the dollar the past seven years during the month, Chandler said.

Investors await a press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell and statement by the U.S. central bank at the conclusion of a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, and the U.S. unemployment report on Friday.

Policymakers are expected to hold the Fed’s target interest rate steady at a range of 5.25%-5.50%, but some investors believe the U.S. central bank could drop its hiking bias.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 8.6 basis points to 4.074%, while the European benchmark – the 10-year German bund – slid 0.8 basis points to 2.230%.

Treasury yields had dropped sharply in November and December, helping equity markets to rally on expectations that Fed rate cuts could come as soon as March. But yields rose in January on concerns about the government’s funding needs.

Treasury yields slid further on Monday after the Treasury Department said late in the session that it would need to borrow less than its previous estimates.

Asian shares rose as new steps by Beijing to stabilize the local market outweighed the drag on sentiment from a Hong Kong court order to liquidate property giant China Everglade.

Investors were also sensitive to geopolitical risks with oil rising after a Couth missile attack caused a fire on a fuel tanker in the Red Sea and a drone attack killed three U.S. troops in Jordan.

In Asia, the main drag to stocks came from a Hong Kong court order to liquidate Everglade, the poster child of China’s property meltdown.

Hong Kong’s Hang Sen trimmed gains on the news and closed up 0.78%, having earlier been up nearly 2% on the back of China’s securities regulator saying on Sunday it would fully suspend the lending of restricted shares.

Oil prices fell more than a dollar a barrel as China’s ailing property sector sparked demand worries, causing traders to reassess the supply risk premium from escalating tensions in the Middle East.

U.S. crude futures settled down $1.23 at $76.78 a barrel, and Brent fell $1.15 to end at $82.40 a barrel.

U.S. gold futures settled 0.4% higher at $2025.40 an ounce.

(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Additional reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Kylie MacLellan, Mark Potter and Deepa Babington)

By Shariq Khan

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Oil prices fell more than a dollar a barrel on Monday as China’s ailing property sector sparked demand worries, causing traders to reassess the supply risk premium from escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Brent crude futures fell $1.15, or 1.4%, to settle at $82.40 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped by $1.23, or 1.6%, at $76.78 per barrel.

Both contracts settled lower for the first time in four sessions as attention shifted to demand concerns in China, where a real estate crisis deepened with a Hong Kong court ordering the liquidation of property giant China Evergrande Group.

The deepening real estate crisis is a blow to investor confidence in the top oil importer’s economy, with earlier data showing slower than expected activity.

“The situation in China is the biggest headwind to the whole market, that is why the market keeps backing off from the war risk premium,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC.

Both benchmarks had gained about 1.5% early in Monday trade, with Brent prices touching their highest since early November after a fuel tanker was hit by a missile in the Red Sea and U.S. troops were attacked in Jordan near the Syrian border. The events mark a major escalation of tensions that have engulfed the Middle East.

However, following the news from China, some market participants questioned how much the risk premium should be as oil supplies have not yet been directly affected by the Middle East crisis.

“Currently we are seeing a premium of around $10 a barrel when it should really just be $3 or $4 based on true petroleum demand fundamentals,” said Gary Cunningham, director at energy advisory firm Tradition Energy.

Meanwhile, lingering high interest rates were also in focus after European Central Bank policymakers were unable to reach a consensus on Monday over when interest rates should be cut.

Russia, meanwhile, is likely to cut exports of naphtha, a petrochemical feedstock, by between 127,500 and 136,000 barrels per day – about a third of its total exports – after fires disrupted operations at Baltic and Black Sea refineries, according to traders and LSEG ship-tracking data.

Another Russian oil facility came under attack on Monday, with Russian authorities indicating they had thwarted a drone attack on the Slavneft-YANOS refinery in the city of Yaroslavl.

U.S. crude oil and distillates inventories were expected to have reduced last week while gasoline stocks were seen rising, according to a preliminary Reuters poll.

The American Petroleum Institute will publish its U.S. stockpiles data on Tuesday around 4:30 pm ET. Official data from the Energy Information Administration is due on Wednesday at 10:30 am ET.

(Reporting by Shariq Khan, Natalie Grover, Florence Tan and Mohi Narayan; Editing by Mark Potter, Jane Merriman and Ros Russell)

By Herbert Lash and Alun John

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -A gauge of global stocks rose on Monday, with European shares surging to a fresh two-year high, and bond yields eased as markets scaled back ambitious bets at the end of 2023 on rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks.

Wall Street also edged higher, with the S&P 500 poised to set a new record closing high, at the start of a week packed with big corporate earnings, European inflation data, Federal Reserve and Bank of England meetings and U.S. employment data.

Europe’s broad STOXX 600 index briefly touched a fresh two-year high as it closed up 0.2% after posting its biggest weekly gain in three months last week. [.EU]

The market is trying to understand the outlook for the U.S. economy as it unlikely will require the deep interest rate cuts by the Fed it has priced in, said Phillip Nelson, head of asset allocation at NEPC, an investment consultant for institutional investors in Boston.

Absent geopolitical shocks, the U.S. economy will grow better than expected with just a few areas underperforming, he said.

MSCI’s U.S.-centric gauge of global equity performance gained 0.67%, while on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.51%, the S&P 500 gained 0.71% and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.07%.

The S&P 500 has notched five all-time closing highs so far in January. Megacap earnings will be scrutinized this week after disappointing forecasts from Intel and Tesla last week deepened concerns about the valuation of the megacapp growth stocks that spearheaded the rally at year-end 2023.

Microsoft, which through its partnership with Open AI piqued market interest about artificial intelligence in 2023, is expected to report a 15.8% jump in quarterly revenue on Tuesday. The stock was up 1.2% in afternoon trading.

Results from other members of the Magnificent Seven – Alphabet, Apple, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com – also are due this week, in addition to heavyweights Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Qualcomm, Merck, Pfizer and Boeing.

The euro sank to almost a seven-week low, breaking below the 1.08 mark, as the market dialed back expectations of the extent of rate cuts this year by the Fed and European Central Bank (ECB), said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York.

“We’re still reacting and correcting to what happened in Q4 last year,” Chandler said.

“The market got in its head there’d be aggressive rate cuts not just by the Fed, but by the Bank of England and the ECB. The dollar sold off in that environment,” he said.

The dollar index retreated, down 0.13%, while the euro slid 0.16% at $1.0835 after falling to $1.0797. The euro may be poised for a weak February, as the single currency has declined versus the dollar the past seven years during the month, he said.

Investors await the press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the statement by the U.S. central bank at the conclusion of a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, and the U.S. unemployment report on Friday.

Policymakers are expected to hold the Fed’s target interest rate steady at a range of 5.25%-5.50%, but some investors believe the U.S. central bank could drop its hiking bias.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 9 basis points to 4.070%, while the European benchmark – the 10 year German bund – slid 0.7 basis points to 2.231%.

Treasury yields dropped sharply in November and December, helping equity markets to rally on expectations that Fed rate cuts could come as soon as March. But yields have risen this year as traders pared back rate cut bets.

Treasury yields fell further after the Treasury Department said late in the session that it would need to borrow less than its previous estimates.

Concerns over a wave of supply due to the increasing federal deficit pushed yields near two-decade highs in October, though signs that inflation is cooling and the U.S. economy may be on pace for a soft landing has helped bring yields down since.

Asian shares rose as new steps by Beijing to stabilize the local market outweighed the drag on sentiment from a Hong Kong court order to liquidate property giant China Evergrande.

Investors were also sensitive to geopolitical risks with oil rising after a Houthi missile attack caused a fire on a fuel tanker in the Red Sea and a drone attack killed three U.S. troops in Jordan.

In Asia, the main drag to stocks came from a Hong Kong court order to liquidate Evergrande, the poster child of China’s property meltdown.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng trimmed gains on the news and closed up 0.78%, having earlier been up nearly 2% on the back of China’s securities regulator saying on Sunday it would fully suspend the lending of restricted shares.

Mainland Chinese blue chips had struggled to make headway early in the session, and eventually slumped 0.9%.

Oil prices fell more than a dollar a barrel as China’s ailing property sector sparked demand worries, causing traders to reassess the supply risk premium from escalating tensions in the Middle East.

U.S. crude futures settled down $1.23 at $76.78 a barrel, and Brent fell $1.15 to end at $82.40 a barrel.

U.S. gold futures settled 0.4% higher at $2025.40 an ounce.

(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Additional reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Kylie MacLellan and Mark Potter)

(This Jan. 26 story has been corrected to fix the crater name to Jezero, not Jerezo, in paragraphs 1, 6 and 7)

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – NASA’s rover Perseverance has gathered data confirming the existence of ancient lake sediments deposited by water that once filled a giant basin on Mars called Jezero Crater, according to a study published on Friday.

The findings from ground-penetrating radar observations conducted by the robotic rover substantiate previous orbital imagery and other data leading scientists to theorize that portions of Mars were once covered in water and may have harbored microbial life.

The research, led by teams from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oslo, was published in the journal Science Advances.

It was based on subsurface scans taken by the car-sized, six-wheeled rover over several months of 2022 as it made its way across the Martian surface from the crater floor onto an adjacent expanse of braided, sedimentary-like features resembling, from orbit, the river deltas found on Earth.

Soundings from the rover’s RIMFAX radar instrument allowed scientists to peer underground to get a cross-sectional view of rock layers 65 feet (20 meters) deep, “almost like looking at a road cut,” said UCLA planetary scientist David Paige, the first author of the paper.

Those layers provide unmistakable evidence that soil sediments carried by water were deposited at Jezero Crater and its delta from a river that fed it, just as they are in lakes on Earth. The findings reinforced what previous studies have long suggested – that cold, arid, lifeless Mars was once warm, wet and perhaps habitable.

Scientists look forward to an up-close examination of Jezero’s sediments – thought to have formed some 3 billion years ago – in samples collected by Perseverance for future transport to Earth.

In the meantime, the latest study is welcome validation that scientists undertook their geo-biological Mars endeavor at the right place on the planet after all.

Remote analysis of early core samples drilled by Perseverance at four sites close to where it landed in February 2021 surprised researchers by revealing rock that was volcanic in nature, rather than sedimentary as had been expected.

The two studies are not contradictory. Even the volcanic rocks bore signs of alteration through exposure to water, and scientists who published those findings in August 2022 reasoned then that sedimentary deposits may have eroded away.

Indeed, the RIMFAX radar readings reported on Friday found signs of erosion before and after the formation of sedimentary layers identified at the crater’s western edge, evidence of a complex geological history there, Paige said.

“There were volcanic rocks that we the landed on,” Paige said. “The real news here is that now we’ve driven onto the delta and now we’re seeing evidence of these lake sediments, which is one of the main reasons we came to this location. So that’s a happy story in that respect.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Will Dunham and Kim Coghill)

By Herbert Lash and Alun John

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -European shares surged to their highest since January 2022 and bond yields on both sides of the Atlantic eased on Monday even as markets scaled back what investors deemed had been overly ambitious bets on policy rate reductions at the end of 2023.

Stocks on Wall Street were little changed and the U.S. dollar advanced at the start of a packed week of big corporate earnings, European inflation data, Federal Reserve and Bank of England policy meetings and U.S. jobs numbers for January.

Europe’s broad STOXX 600 index briefly touched a fresh two-year high and traded slightly higher on the day after its biggest weekly gain in over two months last week. [.EU]

The dollar rose and the euro sank to almost a seven-week low, breaking below the 1.08 mark, as the market dialled back expectations of the extent of rate cuts this year by the Fed and European Central Bank (ECB), said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York.

“We’re still reacting and correcting to what happened in Q4 last year,” Chandler said.

“The market got in its head there’d be aggressive rate cuts not just by the Fed, but by the Bank of England and the ECB. The dollar sold off in that environment,” he said.

The dollar index rose 0.164%, while the euro was down 0.44% at $1.0804 after touching $1.0797. The euro may be poised for a weak February, as in the past seven years the single currency has declined versus the dollar during the month, Chandler said.

MSCI’s U.S.-centric gauge of global equity performance gained 0.17%, pulled higher by advancing shares in Europe. The pan-regional STOXX 600 index rose 0.16%.

Megacap earnings will be scrutinized after disappointing forecasts from Intel and Tesla last week deepened concerns about over-valuation of the momentum stocks that spearheaded the market rally at the end of 2023.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.04%, the S&P 500 gained 0.11% and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.26%. The S&P 500 has notched five all-time closing highs so far in January. Microsoft, which through its partnership with Open AI piqued market interest about artificial intelligence in 2023, is expected to report a 15.8% jump in quarterly revenue on Tuesday. The stock was up 0.6% in early trading.

Results from other members of the Magnificent Seven – Alphabet, Apple, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com – also are due this week, in addition to heavyweights Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Qualcomm, Merck, Pfizer and Boeing.

Investors await the press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the statement by the U.S. central bank at the conclusion of a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, and the U.S. unemployment report on Friday.

Policymakers are expected to hold the Fed’s target interest rate steady at a range of 5.25%-5.50%, but some investors believe the U.S. central bank could drop its hiking bias.

“There is scope for U.S. rate cut expectations to bounce around this week,” said Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank.

“Many economists warned last time around that Powell would push back against market expectations of rate cuts, and he chose not to, so we will have to see what he does.”

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 5.9 basis points to 4.101%, while the European benchmark – the 10 year German bund – slid 0.4 basis points to 2.234%.

Treasury yields dropped sharply in November and December, helping equity markets to rally on expectations that Fed rate cuts could come as soon as March. But yields have risen this year as traders pared back rate cut bets.

Asian shares rose as new steps by Beijing to stabilize the local market outweighed the drag on sentiment from a Hong Kong court order to liquidate property giant China Evergrande.

Investors were also sensitive to geopolitical risks with oil rising after a Houthi missile attack caused a fire on a fuel tanker in the Red Sea and a drone attack killed three U.S. troops in Jordan.

In Asia, the main drag to stocks came from a Hong Kong court order to liquidate Evergrande, the poster child of China’s property meltdown.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng trimmed gains on the news and closed up 0.78%, having earlier been up nearly 2% on the back of China’s securities regulator saying on Sunday it would fully suspend the lending of restricted shares.

Mainland Chinese blue chips had struggled to make headway early in the session, and eventually slumped 0.9%.

Oil prices dipped in choppy trade as China’s ailing property sector sparked demand worries, while rising tensions over the weekend in the Middle East intensified oil supply concerns.

U.S. crude futures fell 1.28% to $77.01 per barrel and Brent was at $82.61, down 1.13% on the day.

Spot gold added 0.4% to $2,027.08 an ounce.

(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Additional reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Kylie MacLellan and Mark Potter)

LONDON (Reuters) – IKEA is investing in price cuts on some products across a range of countries, including Belgium, Canada and India, as the furniture retailer aims to unwind increases it introduced in 2022.

The main IKEA retailer said it has cut costs and sees decreasing raw material prices, enabling it to bring prices down on some products, which will in turn boost sales volumes.

“Every country is sitting and looking at where are the opportunities for us to, by lowering the prices, sell more pieces,” said Tolga Oncu, Ingka Retail Manager at Ingka Group, the biggest owner of IKEA stores. “When you lower the price you also need to see a volume increase.”

IKEA is already selling more of the cut-price products, like KALLAX storage cubes, in some countries, Oncu said.

The aim is to bring prices back to “inflation-adjusted” pre-pandemic levels by the end of next year, Ingka Group said.

Ingka Group is investing 55 million euros ($59.53 million) to cut prices in Canada on more than 1,500 products, while in Belgium it is lowering prices on 2,600 products from February 1. It also plans price cuts in India on hundreds of products.

In the United States, for example, IKEA’s BILLY bookcase cost $69 in 2016. The price fell to $59 in 2019 and increased to $89 by 2022, and is now back at $69.

The retailer has already announced price cuts in Germany – its biggest market by sales – as well as Sweden and the UK.

Ingka Group has invested more than 1 billion euros in price reductions across its markets from September to November.

Red Sea disruptions to global freight, which have pushed up shipping rates, are unlikely to impact IKEA’s plans to cut prices, Oncu said.

“So far when it comes to the Red Sea disruptions, with the facts we know today it is not impacting the pricing direction that we have at IKEA.”

Ingka Group is the main global franchisee of IKEA. The brand is owned by a separate company, Inter IKEA, which manufactures all IKEA products.

($1 = 0.9240 euros)

(Reporting by Helen Reid. Editing by Jane Merriman)

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Naomi Rovnick.

It’s a week laden with market risk events as traders ready for the Federal Reserve’s first interest decision of the year and hostilities in the Middle East escalate. And there is no profit taking in sight.

Futures trading indicates Wall Street’s S&P 500, which is near record highs, will open steady later in the day.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 share index is flat, Hong Kong stocks are 0.8% higher with the liquidation of Chinese property giant Evergrande in the spotlight, and the dollar index is little changed.

The mood is sanguine despite Sunday’s deadly drone assault on U.S. troops in Jordan by Iran-backed militants, and as earnings reports by market heavyweights loom.

Five of the massive “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks that have dominated the S&P’s gains report earnings this week, starting with Google owner Alphabet and Microsoft on Tuesday.

Traders, in markets almost entirely driven by monetary policy bets, may have decided against taking decisions – at least until the Fed signals its interest rate outlook on Wednesday.

Market consensus is for the Fed to hold rates at their highest since 2001 but cement expectations that it is readying to lower them. Money markets currently price a first full quarter-point rate cut by May.

The Bank of England is also expected to keep borrowing costs steady on Thursday but soften its tone on inflation, echoing similar commentary by the European Central Bank last week.

The final risk event this week is monthly U.S. jobs data on Friday. Still, even naturally cautious government bond traders seem unconcerned about a strong labor market delaying rate cuts. The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury is down 5 basis points to 4.10% on Monday.

The U.S. Treasury quarterly borrowing estimate later on Monday is in focus for bond markets.

Events that could influence U.S. markets on Monday:

Dallas Fed manufacturing business index

Three and six month Treasury bill auctions

US earnings: Whirlpool, Nucor

(Reporting by Naomi Rovnick; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

ZURICH (Reuters) – UBS and Credit Suisse lost some ground in their combined share of the Swiss funds business last year, the Asset Management Association of Switzerland said on Monday, predicting that this would fall further.

The market share of the combined bank, which became a single entity last year after UBS stepped in to rescue Credit Suisse, fell to 37.6% in 2023, down from 39.3% the previous year.

The association’s head, Adrian Schatzmann, said he expected the market share of the combined bank to further drop as UBS integrated Credit Suisse and merged some of their funds.

He said some investors also wanted to avoid too large an exposure to just one financial institution.

Swisscanto, BlackRock, Pictet and Swiss Life, are among those who benefited, the association said. Overall, the volume in the Swiss fund market rose by 3.7% to 1.37 trillion Swiss francs ($1.59 trillion) in 2023. The association attributed this growth primarily to the favourable development of the financial markets.

For the Swiss asset management market as a whole, the association estimated that assets under management grew by around 5% to 3.02 trillion in 2023.

Switzerland is now the third most important asset management location in Europe after Britain and France according to a report published by the European Fund and Asset Management Association. It is followed by Germany.

($1 = 0.8631 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Noele Illien; Editing by Alexander Smith)

By Alun John and Kevin Buckland

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) -European shares were at their highest since January 2022 and bond yields dipped on Monday, at the start of a packed week of big corporate earnings, European inflation data, Federal Reserve and Bank of England meetings and U.S. jobs numbers.

Europe’s broad STOXX 600 index briefly touched a fresh two-year high and was last flat on the day after its biggest weekly gain in over two months last week. [.EU]

U.S. share futures were also steady, suggesting no immediate threat to the S&P 500’s position at all-time highs, boosted by data this year showing economic growth is holding up while inflation continues to fall, potentially allowing the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates. [.N]

Asian shares rose as new steps by Beijing to stabilise the local market outweighed the drag on sentiment from the liquidation of property giant China Evergrande.

But there is plenty on the agenda this week that could disrupt this broadly positive tone.

Five of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ large U.S. tech stocks that have dominated U.S. markets in recent months report earnings this week, while the Fed concludes its rate setting meeting on Wednesday and always crucial non-farm payrolls come Friday.

“There is scope for U.S. rate cut expectations to bounce around this week,” said Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank.

“Many economists warned last time around that (Federal Reserve Chair Jerome) Powell would push back against market expectations of rate cuts, and he chose not to, so we will have to see what he does.”

“That then feeds into non-farm payrolls, particularly wage inflation, as even if we have Powell not pushing back on expectations, if the wage inflation aspect of the payrolls is a little firmer, the market will read that as they need to be careful, and that March rate cuts are too early.”

U.S. yields dropped sharply in November and December last year, helping shares to rally, on expectations that Fed rate cuts could come as soon as March, though they have risen this year as traders pared back bets.

Economists mostly predict June for the first cut, but traders are pricing the odds on a March move at essentially a coin toss, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.

Friday data showed continued moderation in U.S. consumer inflation, which added to the narrative of Fed rate cuts in the coming months but also suggested policymakers were under little pressure to rush.

The dollar and U.S. Treasury yields were in the middle of recent ranges on Monday, with the benchmark 10 year yield down nearly 6 basis points (bps) at 4.101%, though set for an increase of 25 bps in January. [US/]

Investors were also sensitive to geopolitical risks with oil rising after a Houthi missile attack caused a fire on a fuel tanker in the Red Sea and a drone attack killed three U.S. troops in Jordan.

In Asia, the main drag to stocks came from a Hong Kong court order to liquidate Evergrande, the poster child of China’s property meltdown.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng trimmed gains on the news and closed up 0.78%, having earlier been up nearly 2% on the back of China’s securities regulator saying on Sunday it would fully suspend the lending of restricted shares.

Mainland Chinese blue chips had struggled to make headway early in the session, and eventually slumped 0.9%.

“People want to believe in what (Beijing is) doing, it’s just that they had a little bit of a hiccup in terms of communicating their policy intent at the beginning of the year,” said Damien Boey, chief macro strategist at Barrenjoey in Sydney.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the currency against six major peers, stuck to the middle of its range of the past two weeks at 103.55, little changed from Friday, though the euro dipped to its weakest in five months on the pound. [FRX/]

In commodity markets, Brent crude futures were flat at $83.51 a barrel, and gold added 0.53% to $2,029.1 an ounce. [GOL/] [O/R]

(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Additional reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Kylie MacLellan and Mark Potter)