* Equities lack trend as earnings roll in, bond yields creep
up
* Fed expected to stay course but outlook is improving
* Copper comes off decade high
* Apple, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Ford, Boeing earnings due
* Graphic: Global asset performance http://tmsnrt.rs/2yaDPgn
* Graphic: World FX rates http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh
*
By Marc Jones
LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) - World shares cosied up close to
record highs and the dollar and global bond yields nudged up on
Wednesday, as traders waited to see if the U.S. Federal Reserve
utters the dreaded 'T' word later - tapering of its mass
stimulus programme.
The broad expectation is that it won't want to unsettle
markets for now, and with a packed day of corporate earnings,
economic data and U.S. President Joe Biden's first address
before a joint Congress session there was plenty
to navigate.
MSCI's broadest index of world shares .MIWD00000PUS was
sidestepping towards its best month of the year so far as
Europe's bourses struggled to hang on to some modest early gains
.EU and S&P 500 futures went flat. .N
In the FX markets, the dollar was on course for its first
unbroken two-day run of gains of the month - April is currently
set to be its worst month since last July. U.S. 10-year Treasury
yields, whose swift rise earlier in the year caught markets off
guard, touched their highest in nearly two weeks at 1.647%.
"The thing that we are going to watch most closely is if the
Fed says anything along the lines of tapering of asset
purchases," said Jim Caron, a senior portfolio manager at Morgan
Stanley.
"As long that doesn't get mentioned, we are all good," he
said, explaining that with the coronavirus pandemic still
worsening in many parts of the world, investors would view any
mention of tapering as a premature step.
Most Fed watchers expect the bank's Chairman Jerome Powell
to repeat the bank's recent message that its low interest rates
and support programmes will remain in place for a long time yet.
U.S. President Joe Biden will also address Congress and is
likely to underscore his administration's plans for mass
infrastructure and stimulus spending. These developments would normally be positive for stocks,
but analysts say so much economic optimism is already priced
into the equity market that it is difficult to budge stocks
further from current levels.
Otherwise, Europe's traders were waiting to hear from ECB
President Christine Lagarde and a number of other top
policymakers. Economic data releases include Germany's GfK
consumer confidence reading for May and France's consumer
confidence reading for April.
APPLE EYED
U.S. earnings later include tech and internet giants Apple,
Facebook and Qualcomm, as well as Boeing, GlaxoSmithKline and
Ford. .N The preliminary March reading for U.S wholesale
inventories is also due.
There had been mixed bag of earnings from Tesla TSLA.O , 3M
MMM.N , Microsoft MSFT.O , and Google-parent Alphabet
GOOGL.O on Tuesday.
In the FX markets, the dollar index rose 0.2% at 91.047
=USD , bouncing from Monday's low of 90.679, its weakest level
since March 3.
The greenback edged up slightly against the yen JPY= and
the British pound GBP=D3 , but trading is expected to be
subdued until Powell speaks after the Fed meeting.
As well as the rise in Treasury yields helping the dollar
higher, break-even rates on 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected
Securities US10YTIP=RR , a measure of expected annual inflation
for the coming decade, rose to 2.41%, the highest since 2013.
Elsewhere, the Australian dollar AUD=D3 was knocked lower
after disappointing data on consumer prices and in
the cryptocurrency market there was excitement as the European
Investment Bank said it would sell a two-year digital bond worth
100 million euros ($120.80 million) on the ethereum blockchain
network. Rival cryptocurrency Bitcoin BTC=BTSP edged lower to
$55,618.
In commodities, Brent crude LCOc1 futures fell a touch to
$66.40 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1
lost 0.03% to $62.92 per barrel due to worries about energy
demand.
Benchmark copper CMCU3 edged back from a decade high of
$9,965 a tonne hit on Tuesday due to some concerns about a
possible softening of demand in China, the world's top consumer
of the metal.
($1 = 0.8278 euros)
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