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US CONGRESS POISED TO GET BACK TO WORK

The U.S. government is on the brink of reopening, potentially restoring pay to unpaid federal workers and ending a drought of economic data that has left the Federal Reserve flying virtually blind for more than a month.

Members of Congress jumping on the opportunity for free publicity could be the latest sign of a return to normalcy. With thousands of delayed and cancelled flights because of the shutdown, some Congressmen have carpooled with colleagues or taken a 16-hour Harley Davidson ride across the country as they return to Washington D.C. to reopen the government.

The Republican-controlled House is due to vote later today on a compromise that would restore funding to government agencies and end a shutdown that started on October 1 and is now the longest in U.S. history.

Optimism around the looming end to the shutdown drove stocks higher, and pushed the dollar away from its lowest levels for the month.

U.S. S&P 500 e-mini futures ESc1 were slightly higher ahead of the vote, after a third consecutive day of gains for the benchmark on Tuesday, while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS added 0.3%.

In Tokyo, the Topix surged 1% to a fresh record. That's despite a fall of as much as 10% for SoftBank Group 9984.T, taking its month-to-date loss to as much as 25% after it said it had sold its entire stake in Nvidia NVDA.O on Tuesday. Even so, shares in Japan's biggest tech sector investor have more than doubled this year.

Still, it's not all bad news from the AI patch. Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O shares jumped 4.8% in after-hours trading, buoyed by its expectations to post $100 billion of annual data center chip revenue within the next five years, and more than triple its earnings.

In early European trading, pan-region futures STXEc1 were up 0.3%, German DAX futures FDXc1 advanced 0.4%, and FTSE futures FFIc1 were flat.

Key developments that could influence markets on Wednesday:

Earnings:

-Infineon Technologies, Experian PLC, SSE PLC

Economic data:

-Germany: CPI for October

Debt auctions:

-Germany: 21-year and 31-year government debt

(Gregor Stuart Hunter)

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