Friday, March 29, 2024
Homeasia marketsAsian shares follow US higher; Shanghai retakes 3,000 mark

Asian shares follow US higher; Shanghai retakes 3,000 mark

China's Shanghai Composite index closed up 5.4 percent to reclaim the critical 3,000 mark, tracking the upbeat sentiment across the region underpinned by Wall Street's biggest one-day gain since 2011 overnight.

According to Reuters, the Shanghai bourse posted its biggest one-day percentage gain in nearly two months.

After six consecutive days of declines, the led gains with a rise of 4.24 percent on Wednesday while the blue-chip and S&P 500 climbed 3.95 and 3.90 percent respectively. The S&P 500 emerged out of correction territory on Wednesday, after sinking into correction during Monday's selloff.

"One reason was that [New York Federal Reserve President] William Dudley, an influential voice on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), said in a speech that a rate hike in September seems 'less compelling' in light of market volatility and foreign developments," analysts at Mizuho Bank wrote in a note.

"Secondly, U.S. durable goods and non-defense ex-aircraft capital goods both outperformed expectations, suggesting that investment momentum has picked up," they added.

Mainland shares rise

China's turbulent stock markets closed up for the first time in five trading sessions, with the benchmark index swinging sharply higher in the final 30 minutes of trading to settle at 3,085.4.

Among China's other indexes, the blue-chip CSI300 index and the smaller Shenzhen Composite closed up 6 and 3.3 percent, respectively.

"Technically, the stock market should have reached the bottom… Now that the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has cut interest rates and reserve requirement ratio (RRR), people will think that there's some kind of support from the government and since people have accumulated a lot of cash, they start to bottom fish," Arthur Kwong, head of Asia Pacific equities at BNP Paribas Investment Partners, told CNBC Asia's "Squawk Box."

Meanwhile, Willie Chan from Maybank Kim Eng attributed the day's gains to investors pinning their bets on a delayed interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

"Today's market moves are mainly due to markets expecting the Fed to delay [its] interest rate hike. Before this, people were expecting next month but now people think it's going to be December. Judging by how the dollar moved over the past 2-3 days, I think markets are expecting that already," said the Singapore-based regional strategist.

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Insurers were among the sectors which rose by the daily limit of 10 percent, while financials such as Bank of China and China Citic Bank closed up 6.3 and 10 percent, respectively.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world's largest bank by assets, reversed losses to advance 4.9 percent ahead of its results. Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of Communications, also due to announce earnings on Thursday, rose 5.3 and 7.8 percent, respectively.

PetroChina, which has the heaviest weighting of any Chinese company in the Shanghai index, pared losses to close up 2.3 percent, while Sinopec shares rose 3.9 percent despite posting a 22 percent fall in first-half profit.

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