World Shares Mixed, US Futures Higher  08/21 05:06

   World shares were mixed on Friday following a retreat on Wall Street as a 
U.S. Treasury Department plan to boost its government debt buybacks appeared to 
have only limited capacity to calm markets.

   HONG KONG (AP) -- World shares were mixed on Friday following a retreat on 
Wall Street as a U.S. Treasury Department plan to boost its government debt 
buybacks appeared to have only limited capacity to calm markets.

   The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 
0.3%.

   In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 slipped 0.1% to 10,737.04. 
France's CAC 40 was nearly unchanged at 8,456.13. Germany's DAX rose 0.2% to 
26,043.43.

   In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.3% to 66,016.36. Japan on Friday reported 
its headline inflation rose to 1.9% in July, in part due to impacts of higher 
oil prices due to the war with Iran.

   South Korea's Kospi climbed 0.9% to 6,912.95. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 
1.2% to 26,009.46, while the Shanghai Composite index added less than 0.1% to 
3,905.20.

   Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.3% to 9,058.90. Taiwan's Taiex gained 0.7%, 
while India's Sensex was up less than 0.1%.

   The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that it will at least double the 
size of its planned purchases of longer-term government debt, while Treasury 
Secretary Scott Bessent signaled Thursday that the repurchase program could be 
larger.

   The announcement temporarily brought down government bond yields, which have 
been elevated under concerns about high inflation partly caused by the war in 
Iran and rising U.S. government debt. Higher yields tend to slow the broader 
economy due to increased borrowing costs across the financial system and can 
undercut stock prices.

   But analysts said they expect the effect on bond yields were to be 
temporary. The yield of the U.S. 10-year Treasury was around 4.69%, up from 
nearly 4.64% on Thursday and back near its level before the Treasury 
Department's announcement.

   The 30-year Treasury yield was about 5.24%, up from 5.18% on Thursday.

   In Asia, bond yields also rose back. Japan's 10-year government bond yield, 
which had been trading near 30-year highs, rose to about 2.88% from around 
2.83% on Thursday.

   The latest climb in bond yields has weighed on share prices. On Thursday, 
Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.9%. The Dow fell 1.3%, and the 
technology-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 1%.

   In other dealings early Friday, oil prices fell, even as the U.S. stepped up 
its economic threats toward Iran while limited progress has been made toward 
de-escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran.

   Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.3% to $93.45 a barrel. It 
was trading at roughly $72 per barrel before the start of the war. Benchmark 
U.S. crude was down 0.4% to $86.53 a barrel.

   The U.S. dollar fell to 158.58 Japanese yen from 159.05 yen. The euro was 
trading at $1.1704, up from $1.1678.