Asian shares subdued ahead of Nvidia results, dollar steadies near 1-week low
Options imply share volatility for Nvidia earnings
China's central bank holds lending rates steady
Wall Street futures up, Asian shares mixed
Bitcoin not far from record high
Updates prices as of 0530 GMT
By Stella Qiu
SYDNEY, Nov 20 (Reuters) -Asian shares were trading cautiously on Wednesday as investors looked ahead to earnings results from artificial intelligence darling Nvidia where the risk of disappointment is high, while the dollar steadied after three straight sessions of declines.
The world's most valuable company Nvidia NVDA.O will report its third-quarter results after the bell. Shares climbed 4.9% on Tuesday and options imply a move of almost 9% either direction in the $3.6 trillion stock often seen as a barometer for the tech sector's shift to AI.
Nasdaq futures NQc1 rose 0.2% on Wednesday on top of a 1% jump overnight. EUROSTOXX 50 futures STXEc1 gained 0.4%, while FTSE futures FFIc1 were flat.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was off 0.1%, and Tokyo's Nikkei .N225 slipped 0.2%.
Bitcoin BTC= last held above $92,000, having broken above $94,000 for the first time overnight on expectations U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's administration will be crypto-friendly. Investors are also watching Trump's pick for Treasury secretary,which may come as soon as Wednesday.
In China, the central bank held benchmark lending rates steady as widely expected.Chinese mainland stocks outperformed, with blue chips .CSI300 gaining 0.4%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index .HSI edged up 0.1%.
"(Nvidia) was naturally the key topic on everyone's mind. Big-picture, a nice beat seems widely anticipated tomorrow," said Joshua Meyers, executive director at JPMorgan, in a note to clients.
"FY26 expectations have become quite ebullient, a worry that comes up increasingly in conversations,"Meyers said, adding that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's commentary on the earnings call would be particularly important to "level-set expectations (or not)."
Overnight, investors were rattled by Ukraine's use of U.S. missiles to strike Russia, with Moscow lowering the threshold for a possible nuclear strike, although those fears seem to have abated a little.
Safe-haven currencies such as the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc gained briefly, as did U.S. Treasuries. Benchmark 10-year note yields US10YT=RR were last up 2 basis points at 4.4041%, having fallen 4 bps overnight and still some distance away from a five-month top of 4.505%.
The dollar JPY=EBS also reversed some of the overnight losses against the yen and was last up 0.2% to 155.03, having hit a one-week low of 153.28 overnight.
Against its major peers, the U.S. dollar =USD steadied near one-week lows at 106.23, after three straight sessions of declines to pull away from a recent top of 107.07.
Oil prices were flat on Wednesday, after edging up just a little overnight. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 held at $69.39 a barrel, having ended Tuesday just 0.3% higher.
Gold climbed for a third straight session, up 0.2% to $2,636.46 per ounce XAU=.
Asia stock markets https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4
Asia-Pacific valuations https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dr2BQA
Reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Stephen Coates and Jamie Freed
To read Reuters Markets and Finance news, click on https://www.reuters.com/finance/markets For the state of play of Asian stock markets please click on: 0#.INDEXA
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