the australian dollar and us equity futures rose in early asian trading monday amid signs of improving ties between the us and china while contracts for benchmarks in asia showed muted moves the australian dollar edged higher against the greenback adding to its 2 rise last week the currency’s third consecutive weekly gain against the dollar the advance has attracted hedge funds to short the currency the small advance monday follows positive signs sinous relations will thaw and also ongoing optimism china will unleash fresh stimulus to boost its flagging recovery us secretary of state anthony blinken had “ candid” talks with his counterpart in beijing in a meeting that ran longer than planned president joe biden said saturday he hoped to meet chinese president xi jinping in the next several months futures contracts for australian and hong kong equities were slightly lower mirroring the decline in us stocks friday while japanese contracts made a small advance investors are keenly monitoring for signs of further official support for the chinese economy after the country cut a key lending rate last week the country is set to cut one and five year loan prime rates in decisions expected tuesday according to economist forecasts nomura holdings inc standard chartered plc and morgan stanley have said authorities may increase the quota for local government specialpurpose bonds to finance infrastructure investments in a potential stimulus package to boost growth us stock and bond markets will be closed for the juneteenth holiday monday the sp 500 declined 04 friday to end a sixsession streak of advances as investors look for more insight on federal reserve interest rate decisions fed chair jerome powell will give his semiannual report to congress on wednesday federal reserve bank of st louis president james bullard and his counterparts in new york and chicago are all set to speak in the week ahead the fed kept interest rates unchanged last week but warned of more tightening ahead in the past pausing rate hikes for three months after such a run of interest rate hikes has boosted stock prices other key central bank developments in the week ahead include policy meetings in turkey the uk and switzerland   federal reserve chair jerome powell delivers semiannual congressional testimony before the house financial services committee wednesday   federal reserve chair jerome powell delivers semiannual testimony to congress before the senate banking committee thursday some of the main moves in markets   sp 500 futures rose 02 as of 724 am tokyo time the sp 500 fell 04 friday   the euro was little changed at 10938   the japanese yen was little changed at 14192 per dollar   the offshore yuan was little changed at 71307 per dollar   the australian dollar was little changed at 06876 this story was produced with the assistance of bloomberg automation