A General View showing the Hong Kong Skyline in Hong Kong, Saturday, May 22, 2021. (Photo by Vernon Yuen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Asia-Pacific markets were mostly closed on Wednesday, although Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index extended its rally and rose 2.6% after stimulus measures from China.
Chinese markets rallied yesterday after the country’s central bank announced a raft of stimulus measures, with the HSI seeing its best day in seven months, while China’s CSI 300 recorded its biggest one-day gain in four years.
On Wednesday, the PBOC cut its medium-term lending rate to 2%, down from 2.3%. This is the second MLF cut in three months, after the central bank cut rates from 2.5% to 2.3% in late July.
The yuan briefly strengthened to 6.995 against the US dollar, breaching the 7.00 level for the first time since May 2023.
Investors scrutinized Australia’s inflation numbers on Wednesday, with the consumer price index posting a 2.7% year-on-year rise in August, in line with the expectations of economists polled by Reuters and down from a 3.5% rise in July.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged higher, snapping from two straight days of losses.
Japanese Nikkei 225 fell slightly, but the broad-based Topix rose 0.3%.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.4%, while the smaller Kosdaq rose 0.43%. South Korea on Wednesday announced the “Korea Value Up Index,” when trading will begin on Monday.
The index will include 100 companies, with IT and industrial stocks making up more than 40% of the index.
Overnight in the US IS&P 500 rose to a new record on Tuesday, gaining 0.25% to 5,732.93, while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, and closed a new record of 42,208.22.
The Nasdaq Composite added 0.56%, boosted by shares of manufacturer Nvidia.
Shares of artificial intelligence giant Nvidia rose nearly 4% after an official filing showed that CEO Jensen Huang has ended his sale of the manufacturer’s stock for now.
-CNBC’s Brian Evans and Hakyung Kim contributed to this report.
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