NEW YORK, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Asian stocks jumped on Tuesday and Japanese stocks hit a 29-year high as it expects a pandemic relief package to be extended to the United States and an agreement Brexit trade support investors ’risk appetites.
The Japanese Nikkei jumped 0.9% to its highest level since March 1991, while Australian equities rose 0.7% and futures for the S&P 500 added 0.3%.
The U.S. House of Representatives had previously voted to increase stimulus payments to qualified Americans to $ 2,000 from $ 600, sending the measure to the Senate for a vote.
While it’s unclear how the measure will turn out in the Senate, President Donald Trump’s signing on Sunday of a $ 2.3 trillion pandemic bill, which included $ 600 payments, had sent shares to Wall Street to record highs overnight as optimism about recovery increased.
“With Brexit … and the US stimulus agreement now in the rearview mirror, there is a sense of relief because we have avoided the respective worst cases,” said Stephen Innes, Axi’s leading global market strategist , running Man.
Stronger demand for riskier assets kept the US dollar, which is often seen as a “safe haven” asset, at the bottom. It fell 0.02% against a basket of major currencies.
The dollar’s decline has been a popular trade recently and Reuters calculations based on data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday suggested this could last. Dollar short positions rose in the week ending Dec. 21 to $ 26.6 billion, the highest in three months.
The pound softened to $ 1.3462 as investors continued to make gains in the currency following confirmation last week of a widely expected UK-EU trade deal.
A slow dollar boosted gold prices, which rose 0.4% to $ 1,878.76 an ounce.
Oil prices picked up again after falling overnight over concerns that new travel restrictions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic would weaken fuel demand and the prospect of increased supply drag prices down.
US crude rose 0.48% to $ 47.85 a barrel.
Koh Gui Qing Reports; Edited by Sam Holmes