By Tom Westbrook

SINGAPORE, Oct 17 (Reuters) -Asian shares steadied on Thursday ahead of a housing policy briefing in China that has raised expectations of support for the ailing property sector, while the dollar stood near 2-1/2 month highs on the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency.

Global bonds rallied after a surprisingly large drop in British inflation and as the European Central Bank is expected to announce its first back-to-back rate cut in 13 years.

Results at chipmaking giant TSMC 2330.TW will be in focus after a soft outlook from equipment supplier ASML ASML.AS.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 was up 0.2% in early trade and Australian shares .AXJO rose 1% to hit a record high, led by the banking sector which had also performed strongly on Wall Street.

The U.S. dollar stood near more than two-month highs as prediction markets showed Republican Trump leading the U.S. presidential race. U.S. futures ESc1 wobbled lower after the main U.S. indexes closed at or near record levels on Wednesday.

"It's probably only in the last two or three days that the concept of a Trump victory is getting the U.S. dollar bid," said Damien McColough, head of rates strategy at Westpac, with Trump's tariff, tax and immigration policies seen as inflationary, negative for bonds and positive for the dollar.

"There's also the concept of a strong economy and less Fed rate cuts, so the two merge," he said. Trump and the Republicans are also seen as likely to apply a softer touch to cryptocurrency regulation. Bitcoin BTC= has rallied in recent sessions.

Bitcoin is up 15% in a week to $67,615. Gold XAU= hovered at $2,677 an ounce, just short of record levels.

Chinese markets rose modestly at the open, with the Shanghai Composite .SSEC up 0.5% in early trade while Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI was 2% higher.

STERLING SLIPS

Global economic data on Thursday and Friday is also likely to be market-moving. In Asia, the Australian dollar AUD=D3 bounced from a one-month low after data showed net employment blowing past forecasts and pushing out rate cut bets. AUD/

The Aussie dollar was last up 0.5% at $0.6697 and three-year Aussie bond futures YTTc1 fell 8 ticks.

U.S. retail sales data is due later on Thursday, and China on Friday is due to publish third-quarter gross domestic product numbers. On Wednesday, British inflation slowed sharply to an annualised 1.7%, bolstering bets that the Bank of England could cut rates twice before Christmas. 0#BOEWATCH

Rates markets have priced a near 90% chance of two 25 basis point rate cuts before year's end and the news sent sterling GBP=D3 down 0.6% to its lowest since Aug. 20 and helped push gilt and global bond yields lower.GB/GVD/EURUS/

Benchmark 10-year U.S. yields US10YT=RR were steady at 4.03% in Asia and two-year yields US2YT=RR held at 3.95%. Sterling traded at $1.2993, near its overnight low. GBP/

"My guess is that London will probably sell GBP aggressively ... when they walk in," said Spectra Markets president Brent Donnelly in a note to clients, as traders digest the across-the-board slowdown in price pressures.

Elsewhere in foreign exchange trade, the euro EUR=EBS was at $1.0862 and pinned near its lowest since early August and the yen traded at 149.40 per dollar JPY=EBS.

In commodity trade, Brent crude futures LCOc1 steadied at $74.57 a barrel after four sessions of losses after industry data showed an unexpected drop in U.S. crude stockpiles last week. O/R

Reporting by Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by 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