Investing.com- Most Asian exchanges traded lower to start the week, swing between gains and losses following Japan’s elections.
In Asian trading Monday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 surge 1.41% on news that Shinzo Abe will become the country’s next prime minister. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party took 294 of 480 seats in Japan’s lower house of parliament spurring hopes that Abe will have a mandate to force the Bank of Japan to engage in monetary easing in order to weaken the yen.
Elections for Japan’s upper house of parliament are still seven months away, which puts pressure on Abe to weaken the yen immediately. Abe will be Japan’s seventh leader in the past six years. He resigned as Japan’s prime minister in 2007, citing health concerns.
Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.37%, but the Shanghai Composite added 0.51%.
Investors appeared skittish about riskier assets in the fact of progressing talks on the U.S. fiscal, which have yet to yield results. Talks between President Obama, a Democrat, and House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, continue. However, no resolution appears to be forthcoming. There is one sliver of hope though, as Boehner, previously against tax increases of any kind, has shown a willingness to let the tax rate rise on U.S. taxpayers earning more than $1 million per year.
The current top tax rate is 35%, which if expired, would head to 39.6%. The Obama Administration wants the top tax rate to rise for those U.S. households with $250,000 or more in annual income. That implies the two parties are still far apart, but that there is also room for compromise.
In Australian, the S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.1% ahead of the release of policy minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index fell 0.2% while South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.63%. Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.2%.
In Asian trading Monday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 surge 1.41% on news that Shinzo Abe will become the country’s next prime minister. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party took 294 of 480 seats in Japan’s lower house of parliament spurring hopes that Abe will have a mandate to force the Bank of Japan to engage in monetary easing in order to weaken the yen.
Elections for Japan’s upper house of parliament are still seven months away, which puts pressure on Abe to weaken the yen immediately. Abe will be Japan’s seventh leader in the past six years. He resigned as Japan’s prime minister in 2007, citing health concerns.
Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.37%, but the Shanghai Composite added 0.51%.
Investors appeared skittish about riskier assets in the fact of progressing talks on the U.S. fiscal, which have yet to yield results. Talks between President Obama, a Democrat, and House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, continue. However, no resolution appears to be forthcoming. There is one sliver of hope though, as Boehner, previously against tax increases of any kind, has shown a willingness to let the tax rate rise on U.S. taxpayers earning more than $1 million per year.
The current top tax rate is 35%, which if expired, would head to 39.6%. The Obama Administration wants the top tax rate to rise for those U.S. households with $250,000 or more in annual income. That implies the two parties are still far apart, but that there is also room for compromise.
In Australian, the S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.1% ahead of the release of policy minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index fell 0.2% while South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.63%. Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.2%.