Asian stocks: Mildly bid amid mixed catalysts

• Trade/Brexit-led risk aversion confronts easy money policy actions/signals from Asian central bankers.
• Key inflation numbers from the UK, EU, and Canada join the US retail sales to decorate economic calendar.
• Comments from the Federal Reserve officials, Brexit/trade news offer qualitative signals to follow.

Given the risk-off mood confronting the Bank of Korea’s (BOK) rate cut and China’s injection of funds, Asian stocks stay mildly bid while heading into the European session on Wednesday.

Among the risk drivers, the news that the United States (US) is up for a law that would increase its interference in Hong Kong contributed the major force while Brexit uncertainty and Syrian headlines added strength to the rush to safety moves.

On the other hand, BOK announced another rate cut of 2019 and China’s central bank, namely the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), injected 200 billion Chinese Yuan (CNY) via one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF).

With this, the 10-year Treasury yield of the US bonds looses nearly two basis points to 1.748% whereas the MSCI’s index of Asia Pacific shares ex-Japan mark around 0.1% gain. Further, Japan’s NIKKIE rallies more than 1.3% by the press time but Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite Index marks close to 0.20% loss.

Additionally, China’s HANG SENG stays mostly unchanged due to PBOC’s move and trade tension whereas India’s BSE SENSEX cheers the government’s signal for further fiscal measured. Furthermore, Australia’s ASX 200 and New Zealand’s NZX 50 also join the league of Japanese index with more than 1.0% gains.

Looking forward, the economic calendar offers key data from major global economies while Fedspeak and trade/Brexit headlines could keep traders buyers for the day.