Australian shares ended the day up 1.1 percent, posting a 0.8 percent loss for the week.
Advertisement
South Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong markets are closed for holidays.
U.S. August retail sales and manufacturing output fell more than expected, data on Thursday showed. The lacklustre reports prompted the Atlanta Fed to lower its third-quarter GDP estimate to a 3% annual rate, from 3.3% earlier.
“Anyone left calling for a September hike next week from the Federal Reserve must be feeling a bit hot under the collar after further signs of economic vulnerabilities”.
There’s another reason those maturities are lagging behind: worldwide central banks are showing reluctance to extend the expansionary monetary policies that drove yields in Europe and Asia to record lows and stoked demand for long bonds in the United States, too. Consumer price inflation data on Friday is the next economic focus. US benchmark 10-year Treasury notes fell 4/32 in price to yield 1.70 percent, up from 1.69 percent on Wednesday.
Shares of Apple jumped 3.4 per cent to $111.65, helping USA stocks recover from losses the previous day, on reports of strong demand for the new iPhone. Apart from the policy decision, the BoJ is expected to publish the results of the comprehensive assessment of its current policy framework.
Sources told Reuters on Wednesday that the BOJ will consider making negative interest rates the centerpiece of future monetary easing, underscoring growing concerns over the limits to the BOJ’s stimulus efforts, as more than three years of aggressive bond buying is draining market liquidity.
US long-dated bonds have underperformed in the past month, in line with a steepening yield curve in Japanese government bonds.
On top of this, markets were disappointed by the European Central Bank’s inaction at its last policy meeting and several Federal Reserve officials have recently sounded more inclined to raise US interest rates by the end of the year.
A yield curve steepens when the gap between long- and short-dated bond yields widens, and is usually symptomatic of a broadly healthy economy and financial system. This is based on our view that the Fed is likely to raise interest rates by 25bp in December.
An appropriate policy mix, including reforms in the labour market and a fiscal plan, would increase monetary policy effectiveness.
Almost two-thirds of companies said they would revise down their earnings forecasts for this financial year if the dollar falls and stays below 100 yen, versus the current level of around 102 yen.
In the currency market, the dollar pared gains against a basket of currencies, with the dollar index at 95.327, compared to levels near 95.662 touched during Asian hours.
The euro was also flat at $1.1243, poised for a 0.1% weekly gain.
Oil prices rose about 1 per cent, tracking a rally in gasoline futures.
Crude for October delivery climbed $0.33 or 0.8 percent to $43.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday. The premium for contracts to buy the yen versus the dollar in one month, over the cost of those to sell, was at 0.5 percentage point Thursday, after largely disappearing from end-August through last week.
Advertisement
The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 31.98 points, or 0.18 percent, to 18,034.77, the S&P 500 closed off 1.25 points, or 0.06 percent, to 2,125.77 while the Nasdaq Composite added 18.52 points, or 0.36 percent, to 5,173.77.
