Asian Shares Rise On Stimulus Hopes

Asian stocks were broadly higher on Thursday after a tech-sector rally helped Wall Street snap a three-day losing streak overnight.

Oil dipped after a two-day rally, while the dollar index eased and U.S. Treasury yields steadied as traders dialed back aggressive bets on Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes.

Market participants wait for the European Central Bank meeting later in the day amid concerns of more hawkish guidance.

China’s Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.7 percent after China’s cabinet flagged upcoming cuts to banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR) and interest rates to counter the impact of Covid-19 and boost the recovery and growth of consumption.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was rising 0.4 percent even as Shanghai lockdown dragged on.

Japan’s Nikkei index rallied 1.2 percent, a day after the yen weakened past the 126 yen per dollar mark for the first time since 2002.

Seoul shares were little changed after the Bank of Korea unexpectedly raised its policy rate to the highest since August 2019 to cool consumer prices fueled by pandemic-era stimulus and exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.4 percent as commodity stocks climbed. The country’s unemployment rate held at a 13-year low in March as jobs growth slowed after months of strong gains, official data showed earlier in the day.

New Zealand shares edged up slightly, a day after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised interest rates by 50 basis points — its most aggressive hike in over two decades.

The Bank of Canada also raised interest rates by half a percentage point – its biggest single move in more than two decades to fight soaring inflation.

U.S. stocks rose overnight as Treasury yields pulled back across the curve and investors digested the latest earnings reports from the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Delta Air Lines and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Investors shrugged off data showing that U.S. monthly producer prices increased by the most in more than 12 years in March.

The Dow climbed 1 percent, the S&P 500 added 1.1 percent to snap a three-day losing streak and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 2 percent.

European stocks ended mixed on Wednesday as investors weighed the risks associated with soaring inflation, the ongoing war in Ukraine and an extended Covid-19 lockdown since late March in Shanghai.

The pan European Stoxx 600 ended flat with a positive bias. The German DAX dropped 0.3 percent, while France’s CAC 40 index and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 both finished marginally higher.