World markets steadied on Tuesday as investors looked beyond Joe Biden's exit from the US presidential race, turning their focus to corporate earnings and economic data.
Biden's exit from the race has cast some doubt over a Republican victory under Donald Trump and could see investors unwind trades betting that such a win would add to US fiscal and inflationary pressures.
Vice-President Kamala Harris will campaign in the battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday as the Democrats's presumed nominee.
The pan-European STOXX index was up 0.1 percent while US futures were down 0.2 percent following a 1.1 percent rise in the S&P 500 on Monday.
The US dollar, which had edged higher on Monday, was unchanged against a basket of currencies on Tuesday.
"Markets appear to be in a bit of a holding pattern this morning having now digested the weekend news flow of Biden quitting the presidential race," said Michael Brown, senior strategist at broker Pepperstone in London.
Investors will now focus on whether the polls show a closer race against Trump than when Biden was the Democratic candidate, Brown said.
"You'd expect that, were polls to narrow, and the race be seen as a closer contest, volatility to tick higher, and perhaps some downside creep into the equity space too," he added.
Still, Asian markets remained supported on Tuesday, with Taiwan's benchmark snapping five sessions of losses, rising over 2 percent.
That tracked a broader rebound in chipmaking shares recovering some of the $100 billion in market value that was wiped off Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, over the previous few sessions.
Focus was firmly on earnings on Tuesday, with Tesla and Alphabet due to report after the session close in New York, beginning the season for the "Magnificent Seven" megacap group of stocks.
The tech sector is projected to increase year-over-year earnings by 17 percent, while profit for the communication services sector is seen rising about 22 percent, according to LSEG IBES, but richly valued stocks are also prone to disappointment.
Data watch
In currency markets the main mover was the yen, which was last up 0.6 percent against the dollar at 156.04.
Comments form a senior Japanese politician on Monday added to the pressure on the Bank of Japan, which meets on July 31, to keep hiking rates to help boost its currency, which Tokyo has intervened to prop up this month.
The euro was down 0.2 percent at $1.0873.
Focus remained on central banks. Markets have priced in two US rate cuts this year with the first in September, but expectations could be ruffled by growth and consumer price data due later in the week.
Having moved higher on Monday, benchmark 10-year Treasury yields inched two basis points lower to 4.24 percent and two-year yields, sensitive to interest rate expectations, were down 2 bp to 4.51 percent.
Advance US gross domestic product is forecast to show growth picking up to an annualized 2 percent in the second quarter, while the closely watched Atlanta Fed GDPNow indicator points to growth of 2.7 percent, suggesting some risk to the upside.
The core personal consumption expenditures index, the Fed's preferred inflation measure, is seen rising 0.1 percent in June, pulling the annual pace down a tick to 2.5 percent.
Gold prices were pinned around $2,400 after peaking above $2,450 last week. Brent crude futures, which hit a one-month low on Monday, were up 0.1 percent at $82.48 a barrel.
Bitcoin, which has rallied on bets a Trump administration would take a light-touch approach to cryptocurrency regulation, was down 1.8 percent to $66,920.
