Asian Stocks Through the Roof, Eyes on Central Banks Events
The Asian stock markets opened the week on a bullish note and extended gains for third straight session, tracking the strong gains on the Wall Street and firmer oil prices.
China economic data released over the weekend provided little impetus to the markets, as focus now remains on the key central banks’ meetings scheduled this week, with the BOJ, Feed and BOE policy decision eagerly awaited.
Big week ahead
The Japanese benchmark index, the Nikkei 225
outperforms rest of Asia and jumps 2% to 17,291 points, as risk-on extended into Asia after the US stocks hit their highest this year last Friday. While the recent rally in oil on dwindling hopes of output freeze by major producers also buoyed the sentiment. While a weaker yen versus the greenback boosted the exporters’’ stocks and collaborated in part to the rally in the region’s indices.
The Chinese equities also followed suit amid yuan devaluation, while the traders ignored the ongoing slowdown in the domestic economy, underscored by the weekend’s poor run of macro data. The Shanghai Composite gains nearly 2%, Shenzhen’s CSI300 rallies 2.18% and China A50 shares advance 1.55%.
The Australian stocks are seen higher, with the ASX 200 index now inching up 0.71% at 5,202, as the commodities make a comeback and lift the sentiment around the resource and energy stocks, while financial and banking sector stocks also add to the gains in the index.
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)
