MORNING BID-A tense finish

A look at the day ahead from Saikat Chatterjee.

As if the euro football championships weren't providing enough nail-biting action, global markets have decided to jump on to the act in the closing hours of the first half of 2021.

Major U.S. stock indices hit yet another record high overnight, but Asian stock markets, in a rare move, are looking the other way.

Momentum is clearly faltering with regional indices a mixed bag. Even the high-flying Hong Kong stock market is struggling to rise above the 29,500 level as new coronavirus outbreaks raise concerns over a fledgling economic recovery.

Australia is battling small but fast-growing outbreaks with snap lockdowns in several cities while the Red Cross said Indonesia’s COVID-19 surge is taking the Southeast nation to the edge of a "catastrophe".

And so the mood is distinctly cautious in early European trading with U.S. and European stock futures in the red, while the safe-haven U.S. dollar stands tall against its rivals.

Travel and leisure stocks will be firmly in focus after Spain and Portugal introduced measures to restrict UK travellers who are not fully vaccinated.

The resurgence of the delta virus variant is setting up a tense finish to the June quarter with markets closely eyeing Friday's U.S. non-farm payrolls data.

While the Fed’s mood music has shifted noticeably after a hawkish tilt at a policy review earlier this month, a lower-than-expected reading would be a setback.

With a strong and synchronized global recovery a firmly held consensus view for 2021, any meaningful risk of deviation from that will impact markets. Concerns over the virus spread also weighed on oil prices, which slipped for a second day. Major global bond yields held near one-week lows.

Key developments that should provide more direction to markets on Tuesday:

- UK house prices up 13.4% in year to June.

- Germany June CPI

- Turkey Trade balance

- Eurozone business climate

- U.S. consumer confidence

- Brussels Economic Forum speakers: Germany’s Merkel, ECB’s Lagarde

- Private equity firm Bridgepoint plans London IPO

(Reporting by Saikat Chatterjee; editing by Dhara Ranasinghe)