Asian shares climb as US rate cut fever lingers, oil holds gains

Sydney, Dec. 20 (BNA): Asian shares tracked Wall Street higher on Wednesday as U.S. rate cut fever lingered, while oil held on to gains from the past two days.

 

The yen nursed losses near a one-week trough and Japanese yields extended declines after the Bank of Japan held policy steady and gave no sign of when it might end negative interest rates, further aiding risk appetite, Reuters reported.

 

Europe is set to open higher, with EUROSTOXX 50 futures up 0.3% and FTSE futures gaining 0.3%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were both up 0.1%.

 

In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.8% to a fresh four-month peak, helped by a gain of 1.1% in Hong Kong stocks and a jump of 1.6% in South Korea.

 

Chinese shares were an outlier, with blue chips falling 0.5% after the central bank left unchanged its benchmark lending rates, as widely expected.

 

Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.7%, edging closer to a 33-year high. The yen was pinned at 143.66 to the dollar, after an overnight drop of 0.8% and benchmark ten-year yields fell another 7.5 basis points to 0.56%, the lowest since early August.

 

Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones rose 0.7%, for another all-time closing high, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.7% to reach its highest since January. The S&P 500 gained 0.6%.

 

 

 

 

 

ZH