Investing.com - Asian stocks were mixed as the U.S government shutdown stretched into another day and as traders digested news that one of the major credit ratings agencies is considering a downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt.
In Asian trading Wednesday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.11%. USD/JPY rose as investors sought refuge with the dollar, turning their back on the yen, perhaps just temporarily as a safe-haven play.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.39% while the Shanghai Composite dropped 1.35%.JPMorgan cut equities to underweight, citing a cyclical slowdown and potential policy disappointment from a Communist Party meeting in November, Bloomberg reported.
The bank believes the rally in Chinese equities that started in late June is fading faster than market participants had hoped.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was steady with mining shares leading to the upside. Hopes continued to build on Tuesday that U.S. lawmakers and the White House are closer to agreeing on a spending packaged needed to reopen the government and avoid a default.
However, some of that optimism was drained on news that talks between U.S. policymakers to reopen the government mired in its first shutdown in 17 years, had stalled.
New Zealand’s NZSE 50 rose 0.27% after Statistics New Zealand said the country’s CPI rose 0.9% in the third quarter following a second-quarter gain of 0.2%. The third-quarter reading was inline with analysts’ estimates.
Fitch Ratings, the only of one of the three major credit ratings agencies that still has an AAA rating on the U.S., put U.S. Treasury bonds on Rating Watch Negative. That could be viewed as a sign Fitch is preparing to pare its rating on U.S. sovereign debt.
"The prolonged negotiations over raising the debt ceiling ... risks undermining confidence in the role of the U.S. dollar as the preeminent global reserve currency, by casting doubt over the full faith and credit of the U.S. This `faith' is a key reason why the U.S. 'AAA' rating can tolerate a substantially higher level of public debt than other AAA" bonds," said Fitch in a statement.
South Korea’s Kospi inched up 0.06% while Singapore’s Straits Times Index added 0.36%. S&P 500 futures gained 0.50% a day after the benchmark U.S. index fell 0.71%.
In Asian trading Wednesday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.11%. USD/JPY rose as investors sought refuge with the dollar, turning their back on the yen, perhaps just temporarily as a safe-haven play.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.39% while the Shanghai Composite dropped 1.35%.JPMorgan cut equities to underweight, citing a cyclical slowdown and potential policy disappointment from a Communist Party meeting in November, Bloomberg reported.
The bank believes the rally in Chinese equities that started in late June is fading faster than market participants had hoped.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was steady with mining shares leading to the upside. Hopes continued to build on Tuesday that U.S. lawmakers and the White House are closer to agreeing on a spending packaged needed to reopen the government and avoid a default.
However, some of that optimism was drained on news that talks between U.S. policymakers to reopen the government mired in its first shutdown in 17 years, had stalled.
New Zealand’s NZSE 50 rose 0.27% after Statistics New Zealand said the country’s CPI rose 0.9% in the third quarter following a second-quarter gain of 0.2%. The third-quarter reading was inline with analysts’ estimates.
Fitch Ratings, the only of one of the three major credit ratings agencies that still has an AAA rating on the U.S., put U.S. Treasury bonds on Rating Watch Negative. That could be viewed as a sign Fitch is preparing to pare its rating on U.S. sovereign debt.
"The prolonged negotiations over raising the debt ceiling ... risks undermining confidence in the role of the U.S. dollar as the preeminent global reserve currency, by casting doubt over the full faith and credit of the U.S. This `faith' is a key reason why the U.S. 'AAA' rating can tolerate a substantially higher level of public debt than other AAA" bonds," said Fitch in a statement.
South Korea’s Kospi inched up 0.06% while Singapore’s Straits Times Index added 0.36%. S&P 500 futures gained 0.50% a day after the benchmark U.S. index fell 0.71%.