Investing.com - Asian shares rose ahead of trhe lunch break with investors keeping a sharp eye on the yen as it posts fresh gains on Wednesday.
The Shanghai Composite Index was last up 0.19%, after dipping earlier and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was last down 0.76%. The Nikkei 225 gained 0.56%. USD/JPY traded at 108.85, down 0.40%.
The S&P/ASX 200 gained on a a better than expected confidence survey.
In Australia, the Westpac consumer sentiment index for May is jumped 8.5%, compared with a 4.0% fall in the previous month. Also data on home loans for March month-on-month rose 0.9%, better than a drop of 1.5% seen.
"The Reserve Bank targets inflation and its latest forecasts point to the underlying inflation rate holding at 1.5% in 2016 - below the bottom of the 2%-3% target band. That is uncomfortable but nevertheless acceptable if the forecast is for inflation to move back comfortably within the band in 2017. Current forecasts are for underlying inflation to only move to the bottom of the band in 2017, despite the Bank including a follow up rate cut in its forecast assumptions (due to its practice of adopting market pricing for its interest rate assumptions for the forecast)," Westpac chief economist Bill Evans wrote in a note.
The yuan rose against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday after the People's Bank of China set a stronger fixing at 6.5209 compared with 6.5233 previously.
U.S. stocks surged on Tuesday, closing the day near session-highs, as a rally in persistently sluggish oil prices and financial stocks provided a boost to the major indices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 222.44 or 1.26% to 17,928.35, while the NASDAQ Composite index gained 59.67 or 1.26% to 4,809.88, as stocks on Wall Street closed higher for the third consecutive session. With the sharp gains, the Dow enjoyed its strongest one-day session in two months.
At one point, shares in McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), Home Depot Inc (NYSE:NYSE:HD) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:NYSE:JNJ) all reached all-time intraday highs. The S&P 500 Composite index, meanwhile, added 25.70 or 1.25% to 2,084.39, as all 10 sectors closed in the green. Stocks in the Basic Materials, Industrials and Energy industries led, each gaining more than 1% on the session.