China’s stocks staged a rally on Wednesday as the trade data suggested stabilisation in China’s economy.
Advertisement
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3%, reaching its highest level since December 2.
OANDA senior foreign exchange trader Stephen Innes said the slowdown in the yen was not entirely unexpected. The dollar rallied the most in three weeks after falling to a nine-month low.
The yield on 10-year Korean notes rose five basis points to 1.84 per cent, the biggest increase since March 11.
USA stocks are rising Wednesday morning.
“It’s a strong day overseas and China data was much better than expected”, Mark Kepner, an equity trader at Chatham, New Jersey-based Themis Trading LLC, said by phone.
Investors also gave a thumbs up to JP Morgan’s first quarter earnings.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,368 to 686, for a 3.45-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 2,231 issues rose and 619 fell for a 3.60-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.
That came after bank shares in Europe.SX7P did even better, surging 6.3 percent, as investors scooped up Italian banks, re-evaluating a state-orchestrated plan to set up a 5 billion euro ($5.7 billion) fund to shore up weaker banks. The S&P 500 financial sector gained more than 2 percent.
Chinese exports rocketed by 11.5 percent in March from a year ago to $160.8 billion. Commodity producers – one of the only industry groups up for the year – were among the biggest gainers.
The Oceania indexes also traded positively.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index finished 3.19% higher at 21,158.71. It gained 1.06 percent, or 187 points, to close at 17,908 points.
Railroad operator CSX gained $1.04, or 4.2 percent, to $26.03. That helped the dollar index .DXY climb back above 94.000, from a near eight-month low of 93.627.
JPMorgan, the largest USA bank by assets and the first to report as the earnings season gets underway, lifted financials.
Premier Li Keqiang said last week that China’s economic indicators showed signs of improvement in the first quarter but a sluggish world economy and volatile markets were undermining gains.
The dollar bounced back against the yen to 109.41 JPY=, extending the recovery from its 17-month low of 107.63 touched on Monday.
Brazil’s real fluctuated between gains and losses as speculation that the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff is becoming more likely offset the central bank’s efforts to weaken the currency. Emanuel said that’s a sign the recent rally is running out of steam.
Oil prices fell from a four-month high in choppy trading as comments from Russia’s energy minister added to doubts that a producer meeting set for Sunday in Doha could yield a freeze in output.
Precious and industrial metals futures ended mixed.
Still, markets were relieved to see a surge in China’s demand for commodities such as copper, with imports hitting a record monthly high, while its exports to key markets such as the United States and Europe also posted double digit month-on-month gains.
Advertisement
Elsewhere, Singapore’s Straits Times index was rallying 1.5 percent and the Taiwan Weighted was gaining 1.2 percent while benchmark indexes in Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand were up between 0.2 percent and 0.8 percent.
