- Upbeat results from the US majors, receding tension between the US-Turkey favor risk-on.
- An absence of major data, trade/Brexit headlines and mixed catalysts from Asia question the bulls.
Asian equities trim gains as downbeat catalysts and a lack of trade/Brexit headlines question traders ahead of the key events, up for release during the European/London session.
An end to the United States’ (US) sanctions on Turkey and upbeat reports from Microsoft and Tesla helped Asian shares to begin Thursday’s trading on a positive note. However, multi-year low reading of Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) from Japan, mixed data from Australia and weaker than expected growth from South Korea challenged the market sentiment afterward.
Also affecting the risk sentiment is a lack of trade/Brexit headlines and market’s wait for the ECB, not to forget the PMIs from the Eurozone, Germany and the US. As a result, the US 10-year equities stay mostly unchanged to 1.76% while MSCI’s index of Asia Pacific shares ex-Japan marks nearly 0.20% gains by the press time. Moving on, Japan’s NIKKEI nears 0.50% profits despite a mixed bag of data while considering August month indices.
Australia’s ASX 200 seems to benefit from expectations of a trade deal with China and calls for further easing but New Zealand’s NZX 50 is likely differing with 0.20% loss. Further, India’s BSE SENSEX and South Korea’s KOSPI stand mostly even with HANG SENG storing 0.40% gains.
Looking forward, a busy economic calendar during the European/United Kingdom (UK) session will follow even active US hours of trading. However, likely absence of major trade/Brexit headlines could weigh on the market momentum.
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