GLOBAL MARKETS-Shares climb as British budget, Powell testimony top agenda

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Treasury yields edge up, Chinese bond yields at 20-year lows

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Egypt's central bank hikes rates by 600 basis points

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Bitcoin around $66,500, below Tuesday's new record high

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Yen strengthens on report March BOJ meeting could be live

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Oil rises, gold steady near Tuesday's record

(Updates at 1245 GMT)

By Alun John

LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - World shares gained on Wednesday, trading just below record highs, and the 10-year Treasury yield edged off a one-month low ahead of congressional testimony from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, one of many potentially market-moving events in the coming days.

Also on the docket are the British budget, which began at 1230 GMT, and U.S job openings data, China's ongoing annual parliament meeting, the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday, and U.S. non-farm payrolls data on Friday.

In emerging markets, Egypt's central bank let the pound tumble to record lows and hiked interest rates by 600 basis points at an unscheduled meeting, marking the start of a long-awaited devaluation with markets expecting talks between the government and the International Monetary Fund over an augmentation of the fund's programme could come to fruition soon.

Back in developed markets, Europe's broad STOXX 600 index rose 0.3%, trading just off Monday's all-time high, and U.S. S&P 500 futures were up 0.4%, pointing to gains after a sell-off in U.S. large cap names overnight.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6%, helped by a bounceback in Hong Kong , where the benchmark was up 1.7%, though Chinese onshore bluechips dipped.

Beijing on Tuesday set a widely expected 5% growth target for 2024 at a key parliament meeting that lacked major stimulus measures.

BRITISH BUDGET, U.S. DATA

British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt's budget was not expected to cause significant ructions in global markets - unlike the fiscal announcement in 2022 that brought about the end of Liz Truss's brief period as prime minister.

"The government doesn't have a lot of wiggle room, so it will likely be quite dull for sterling in comparison with 2022 - one silver lining for markets from the Liz Truss budget is that it has ensured future governments will have to maintain a high degree of prudence," said Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank.

"Then we have Powell, but there has been so much Fedspeak in the past weeks, which - alongside the data - has been successful in pushing back expectations of early interest rate cuts, so I think payrolls data could have more market impact."

Markets expect the Fed to begin cutting rates in June. At the start of 2024, traders had seen cuts as soon as the Fed's March 20 meeting.

"It is labour market week in the U.S. we have (job opening data) today, and payrolls Friday. January was a bit murky and came as a setback from the six-month trend that we’ve had, so what everyone is going to try to understand is whether January was a fluke," said Samy Chaar, chief economist at Lombard Odier.

Non-farm payrolls in January came in much higher than expected, suggesting growth in the world's largest economy was still strong, potentially deterring the Fed from cutting rates soon.

Data on Tuesday showed U.S. services industry growth slowed slightly, sending 10-year U.S. Treasury yields to one-month lows. The benchmark yield ticked up 1 basis point on Wednesday, to 4.15%, with Germany's 10-year yield likewise moving 2 basis points higher to 2.34%.

Britain's 10-year gilt yield was up 3 bps at 4.02%. China's 10-year bond yield fell to a 22-year low on expectations that authorities would keep monetary conditions easy.

Volatility remained low in currency markets, though the Japanese yen yen strengthened to 149.6 per dollar, on reports that some Bank of Japan board members think it would be appropriate to lift rates from negative territory at the March meeting.

The euro last was up 0.16% at $1.08740.

In cryptocurrency, bitcoin was hovering around $66,500, having reached a record high of $69,202 in the previous session, fuelled by investors pouring money into U.S. spot exchange-traded crypto products.

Spot gold was up 0.2% at $2,132.3 an ounce after touching an all-time high of $2,141.59 on Tuesday.

U.S. crude rose 0.8% to $78.79 per barrel and Brent was at $82.52, up 0.60% on the day.

(Reporting by Alun John in London and Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; Editing by Alex Richardson and Bernadette Baum)