Asian shares gain as regional central banks ease or stand pat on rates

Investing.com - Shares in Asia gained on Thursday with Tokyo surging on a weaker yen as central banks around the region move to easy or neutral policies.

The Nikkei 225 gained 1.30 % and the Shanghai composite shot up 1.35% as the Bank of Thailand cut rates on Wednesday and South Korea did on Thursday while New Zealand held pat, signalling no prospects of tighter policy in the near term regionally.

Elsewhere, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.95% as Australia's unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, matching expectations, while 15,600 jobs were added, just above the 15,000 expected, while the participation rate dipped to 64.6% from 64.8%.

Also, in Australia, MI inflation expectations in March fell to an annualized 3.2% from 4.0% in February.

In New Zealand,the central bank held the official cash rate at 3.5% on Thursday even as it cut 90-day bill forecasts and said the monetary policy view is neutral.

"Our central projection is consistent with a period of stability in the OCR. However, future interest-rate adjustments, either up or down, will depend
on the emerging flow of economic data," RBNZ said.

The Bank of Korea cut to 1.75% on Thursday, 25 basis points, which followed the Bank of Thailand a day earlier to 2% from 2.25%.

Overnight, U.S. stocks were lower after the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Consumer Goods, Utilities and Technology sectors led shares lower.

At the close in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.16% to hit a new 1-month low, while the S&P 500 index declined 0.19%, and the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0.20%.

Ahead, market drivers remain expectations that the Federal Reserve is expected to begin raising interest rates around the middle of this year and investors were looking ahead to next week’s policy statement to see if it would drop its reference to being patient before raising rates.

The euro came under broad selling pressure overnight after the European Central Bank began purchasing securities on Monday as part of an asset-buying program amounting to €60 billion a month.

Concerns over the situation in Greece also weighed, as the eurogroup of finance ministers continued talks in Brussels to discuss a reform package put forward by Greece as part of its bailout review.

Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned Tuesday that Greece must stop wasting time and start developing its reform package.