Visitors are faced with an electronic ticker on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. (JPX), in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, November 30, 2020.
Toru Hanai | Bloomberg via Getty Images
SINGAPORE – Asia-Pacific markets rose mostly on Tuesday after a relatively moderate start to World Trade Week as investors await the Fed meeting in the state.
Australian stocks rose as the ASX 200 benchmark rose 0.8% to 6,827.10, after ending almost flat in the previous session. Most sectors traded, except energy and materials sub-indices, which closed 0.17% and 0.65%, respectively.
Oil stocks and major miners closed mixed, but so-called Big Four banks advanced: Commonwealth Bank shares rose 0.9%, while ANZ rose 0.56%, Westpac added 0.61% and National Australia Bank advanced 0.42%.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan advanced 0.52% to 29,921.09, while the Topix index gained 0.65% to 1,981.50. In South Korea, the Kospi added 0.7% to 3,067.17, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.6% in afternoon trading.
Shares in mainland China reversed previous losses to close higher: the Shanghai compound added 0.78% to 3,446.73 and the Shenzhen component advanced 0.91% to 13,642 , 95.
This follows a day-to-day session on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 rose to record highs amid optimism about economic reopening.
Fed meeting
The Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet on March 16 and 17.
This “is certainly another factor that keeps investors a little cautious at the start of the new week,” Rodrigo Catril, chief foreign exchange strategist at the National Bank of Australia, said in a note Tuesday morning.
“There is a lot of attention on whether the new point predictions and plot will vindicate the current rise in the Fed’s rising expectations,” he said.
Each quarter, FOMC members predict where interest rates will go in the short, medium and long term. These projections are represented visually in graphs and are called point graphs.
Rising interest rates and the recovery of the US economy have highlighted the easy policies of the central bank and market observers have questioned when the Fed can consider unleashing such policies.
The Bank of England will meet on Thursday and the Bank of Japan will also begin its two-day political meeting that same day.
Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia released the minutes of the March monetary policy meeting and said members concluded that “very significant monetary support would be required for some time, as it would be a few years before the Bank’s inflation and unemployment targets are met. . “
Coins and oils
In the foreign exchange market, the US dollar traded 0.12% at 91.941 against a basket of equals, which rose from a previous level around 91.780.
The Japanese yen changed hands at 109.2, remaining relatively flat. Meanwhile, the Australian dollar fell 0.36% to $ 0.7726.
Oil prices stumbled on Tuesday during Asian trading hours. U.S. crude futures fell 0.84% to $ 64.84 a barrel, while world benchmark Brent fell 0.78% to $ 68.34.