HONG KONG, (Reuters) – Asian shares recovered from two consecutive days of losses and rose on Friday as investors waited for U.S. employment data to confirm the urgent need for higher U.S. rates.

The broadest MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares other than Japan rose 0.3%. This was aided by an increase in 1.2% in the benchmark Australian stock market, where banks stocks are at the forefront, but gave up some early gains to fall 0.66%.

Nasdaq futures rose by as high as 0.5% during earlier Asian trading, before losing some gains to trade 0.25% lower and emini stock futures advanced 0.17.

According to Kerry Craig (NYSE: Asset Management), the key market driver for this week was the increase in U.S. yields as a result of publication by the Federal Reserve’s December minutes.

These minutes were published Wednesday and showed that the tight labor market combined with unrelenting inflation could cause the U.S. central banks to increase rates this year.

Craig said that although yields were slightly lower at the end, they still showed a slight increase in share futures. This trend is also evident at the Asia Open.

Last night, benchmark’s yield reached 1.7211%. This is a sharp increase from the 1.5118% recorded in 2021.

Just 0.886% was the overnight high, but the two-year yield of 0.8656% was close to it.

Craig of JPMorgan said that investors were awaiting U.S. nonfarm payroll data later Friday and next week’s inflation data to determine if they would strengthen or weaken the argument for faster U.S. rate increases.

Tech shares have suffered this week due to higher yields as investors shifted into shares of banks and other companies that perform well in higher rates environments like banks.

MSCI Asia benchmark (which gives weight to many large tech companies) is currently off 1.1%. Tech stocks managed to rally Friday however, notably South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. Samsung (KS) stock rose 1.4%, after it reported its highest quarterly operating profit for four years.

The U.S. share price fell overnight, along with rising yields. However, the losses were less severe than the earlier sharp falls. [.N]

The currency market yields were higher, meaning that this week’s, which is used to compare the greenback with six others, rose 0.63%.

Friday’s gains for the greenback against the majors were maintained while the yen gained 0.1%. It was at 115.94 dollars, just 0.1% below Tuesday’s record of 116.34.

Some analysts linked the rally to reports that Russian paratroopers were on their way to Kazakhstan to calm unrest. But, oil production has remained largely unchanged in the OPEC+ producing country.

Futures rose 0.6%, to $82.48/barrel and rose 0.6%, to $79.96.

After touching a low of $1788.25 two weeks ago, the price rose 0.1% to $1,791.85 per ounce on Thursday. This was due to rising U.S. Treasury yields which hurt demand.