Asian shares defensive, dollar struggles near one-month lows By Reuters – Investing.com

Asian shares defensive, dollar struggles near one-month lows By Reuters – Investing.com

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Pedestrians and a traffic light stop sign are reflected on a quotation board in Tokyo

By Swati Pandey SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares were on the backfoot on Thursday following mixed cues from Wall Street where a sharp sell-off in the largest bitcoin exchange Coinbase hit tech shares while the struggled near one-month lows. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan paused after two straight days of gains. It was last at 690.53, a long way from a record high of 745.89 touched in February. rose 0.2% while South Korea's index was up a tad. Australia's benchmark index slipped 0.4% as miners were dented by weaker prices for iron ore and coal. Global shares have surged in recent weeks led by successful rollouts of COVID-19 vaccines around the world, U.S. stimulus packages and higher U.S. inflation expectations. "However, the back up in treasury yields has begun to exert a valuation test on some parts of the global equity markets with value outperforming growth," Jefferies (NYSE:) analysts wrote in a note. "Equally, there are fewer stocks offering decent yields and higher capital gains." JPMorgan (NYSE:) Asset Management was trimming its overall Emerging