Asia-Pacific stocks mixed as Australia announces rate hike that's larger than forecast

3 yıl önce

SINGAPORE â Shares in Asia-Pacific struggled for direction in Tuesday trade as the Reserve Bank of Australia announced a larger-than-expected interest rate decision.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.61%, leading losses regionally as shares of major banks dropped: Commonwealth Bank of Australia shed 2.22%, Westpac slipped 1.84% and National Australia Bank slid 2.86%.

The Reserve Bank of Australia unexpectedly announced a 50 basis points increase in the cash rate on Tuesday to 0.85%. Analysts had been expecting a rate hike of 25 basis points or 40 basis points, according to Reuters.

Following that announcement, the Australian dollar jumped to $0.7216, against an earlier low of $0.7158.

I think it's still way too early to say that markets have bottomed ... If you're looking at the short-term, I'm pretty cautious. I think we could see more downside.

Shane Oliver

head of investment strategy, AMP Capital

Mainland Chinese stocks were in positive territory, with the Shanghai Composite up about 0.5% and Shenzhen Component gaining 0.181%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slipped 0.12%.

Over in South Korea, the Kospi fell 1.4%.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan advanced 0.41%, while the Topix index climbed 0.74%.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan traded 0.65% lower.

"I think it's still way too early to say that markets have bottomed," Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP Capital, told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia" on Tuesday. "If you're looking at the short-term, I'm pretty cautious. I think we could see more downside."

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"We've seen bond yields pushing up again overnight or in fact, for the last week or so they've been pushing higher again. Yes, there's signs of a potential peak in U.S. inflation but other parts of the world, it's more tenuous and I'd rather see the oil price decisively top out before I get more confident about saying inflation has peaked as well," Oliver said.

Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 climbed 0.31% to 4,121.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 16.08 points higher, or less than 0.1%, to 32,915.78. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.4% to 12,061.37.

Currencies and oil

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 102.549 after a recent bounce from below 102.

The Japanese yen traded at 132.79 per dollar, still weaker than levels below 128 seen against the greenback last week.

Oil prices were higher in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.65% to $120.29 per barrel. U.S. crude futures climbed 0.71% to $119.34 per barrel.

Correction: This article was updated to correct the expected time for the Reserve Bank of Australia's interest rate decision as well as reflect the Asia-Pacific market moves on Tuesday.