Most Asian stock markets rose on Tuesday (18/6), following new records on Wall Street. Investors focus on the decisions of the central bank of Australia.
The country’s Reserve Bank (RBA) kept interest rates at 12 years high at 4.35%, as expected, while warning that there are reasons to be cautious about inflation.
Traders’ bets on a rate cut this year eased after the RBA’s announcements, although the Australian dollar was little changed as the announcement contained few surprises.
The central banks of Norway, the UK and Switzerland are also due to meet this week. Analysts stressed that the first two will keep interest rates unchanged and the Swiss SNB will offer another 25 basis points of monetary easing. In the US, at least six Fed spokesmen will give further clues on the interest rate outlook after last week’s decision.
In China, the local currency, the yuan, fell to a near seven-month low of 7.2556 yuan per dollar, weighed in part by mixed economic data that showed more support from Beijing was needed to stabilize the economy.
In trade, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.64%, helped by from the Wall Street rally.
In Japan the Nikkei rose 0.93% to 38,427.50 and in Australia the ASX 200 gained 0.92% to 7,770.80.
In mainland China the Shanghai Composite rose 0.17% to 3,021.14 and the Shenzhen Component rose 0.26% to 9,305.40.
In South Korea the Kospi gained 0.74% to 2,764.44 points, while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng dropped 0.33% to 17,877 points