Manila(Philippines), Sept 4: Shares in Asia mostly traded higher Thursday after a rally of technology stocks steadied Wall Street and a slide in the dollar made Asian assets more attractive.
US futures were mixed while oil prices were lower.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.2 per cent to 42,437.37 while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.6 per cent to 8,791.50. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.2 per cent to 3,192.22. Taiwan climbed 0.7 per cent while India’s BSE Sensex added 0.6 per cent.
The Chinese markets bucked the trend, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index down 1.1 per cent to 25,006.22. The Shanghai Composite index fell nearly 2 per cent to 3,738.32 on fears regulators will intervene amid excessive stock gains and liquidity.
On Wednesday, Wall Street steadied after Alphabet and other technology stocks rallied. It also got some relief from easing pressure from the bond market, where the latest discouraging report on the US job market bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon to support the economy.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.5 per cent to break the two-day losing slide it had been on since setting its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 24 points, or 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1 per cent.
Google’s parent company was one of the strongest forces lifting the market and jumped 9.1 per cent after avoiding some of the worst-case scenarios in its antitrust case.
Also helping to steady Wall Street was a calming bond market. A day earlier, yields climbed worldwide on worries about governments’ abilities to repay their growing mountains of debt, as well as concerns that President Donald Trump’s pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut short-term interest rates could lead to higher inflation in the long term.
Such worries have pushed investors to demand higher yields before lending money to governments. And when bonds are paying more in interest, investors feel less need to pay high prices for stocks, which are riskier investments.
On Wednesday, Treasury yields retreated following the latest report on the US job market to come in weaker than expected. The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.22 per cent from 4.28 per cent late Tuesday, for example.
The report showed that US employers were advertising 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, fewer than economists had forecast.
A weakened job market could push the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its meeting later this month. That’s the widespread expectation among traders, with the next big data point coming on Friday via an update on US hiring during August.
Lower interest rates could give the job market and overall economy a boost. The downside is that they can also push inflation higher when Trump’s tariffs may be set to raise prices for all kinds of imports.
“The dollar, naturally, buckled under the weight of weaker jobs and lower rates, and increased Fed cut bets, handing Asia an early boost. When the U.S. dollar slides, Asian assets instantly look more attractive in currency-adjusted terms, and regional equities should snap to life after a sluggish start to September,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
But he said Chinese equities slid as regulators fret over excessive stock gains and too much liquidity in the system, with Beijing signalling it may tighten the screws.
In other dealings on Thursday, US benchmark crude lost 42 cents to USD 63.55 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed 35 cents to USD 67.25 per barrel.
The US dollar rose to 148.24 Japanese yen, from 148.05 yen. The euro fell to USD 1.1653 from USD 1.1667. (AP)
