Asian stocks register mild declines, ignore US President Trump’s impeachment
- Asian stocks show a limited reaction to the key political event, drop on downbeat trade concerns.
- A slew of data/events offered an active session earlier, many more to look forward to.
Stocks in Asia show a quite less reaction to US President Donald Trump’s impeachment in the House of Representatives. That said, early-day data/events offer an active session while some more catalysts are still left for watching.
The US President Trump impeachment papers will now reach to the Senate during early January. However, the White House is quite confident, due to the Republican Majority, that the Senate will exonerate President Trump.
Ahead of the outcome, China crossed wired while saying to have no change in its trade stance even if the Republican leader gets impeached. On the flip side, the US President Trump repeated to have a great deal with China while the White House Adviser Larry Kudlow spread some cautious remarks.
Elsewhere, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) held its monetary policy unchanged while data from Australia and New Zealand came in positive. Further, US-North Korea drama continues with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister also accepting the fact of a rise in tensions from the Korean peninsula.
With this, the MSCI’s Asia-Pacific Index (ex-Japan) marks nearly half a percent loss while Japan’s NIKKEI awaits BOJ President Haruhiko Kuroda’s press conference while taking rounds to 23,866 (-0.30%). Further, Chinese indices are mostly down whereas Indonesia’s IDX await Bank Indonesia’s (BI) rate announcement. Moving on, Australia’s ASX 200 is down -0.28% to 6,833 while New Zealand’s NZX 50 gains more than 1.20% on upbeat readings of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Trade Balance. Additionally, Indian BSE SENSEX stays mostly unchanged to 41,590 while Hong Kong’s HANG SENG is in the red to 27,760.
It’s worth mentioning that the market’s risk tone stays a bit heavier with the US 10-year treasury yields slipping back towards 1.90%.
Looking forward, data from Indian, Europe and the UK, coupled with BI’s rate decision, could keep traders busy.