Asian stocks buoyed by dovish Fed, declining Treasury yields boost equities

• Thursday’s early market session sees Asian equities continuing Wall Street’s boost on a dovish Fed head Powell.
• Despite recent gains, key Asian market indexes remain steeply off of the year’s highs.

Asian equities are largely on the bullish side after the US Federal Reserve’s chairman, Jerome Powell, reversed the US central bank’s previously-hawkish policy, suggesting that current rates are much closer to normal than his previous showings, wordlessly suggesting to broader markets that the Fed may ease off their current path of rate hikes much sooner than previously expected.

Japanese indexes are seeing a decent Thursday, with both the Nikkei 225 and Tokyo Topix up by almost 0.70%, with emerging markets up a similar amount, with the MSCI broad Asia-Pacific index up 0.65% into 152.75.

Australia’s ASX 200 is also in the green, up 0.60% for the day after missing out on much of the bullish action in recent Pacific market sessions.

In China, stock investors are holding near the middle, with the Hong Kong Hang Seng index down a scant -0.04% and Shanghai’s CSI 300 index near the mid-line at 0.06%; Chinese equities have had a brutal 2018, with the Hang Seng still off from 1-year highs by -10% while the CSI 300 remains in the red by a massive -21.34% over the past year.

Nikkei 225 Technical Levels