Asia Pacific major indices mostly rose on Wednesday morning (25 Oct, 9:30 AM, GMT+7, Bangkok time). The markets are still assessing the non-directional economic data from several countries, including the almost unchanged Australia’s CPI and US PMI, while the EU and UK’s PMI announced at slightly worse. But the main reason is possibly a confirmation of the CNY 1 trillion stimulus approval yesterday, causing regional indices to rise this morning.
Hong Kong’s HSI swung back to the gain leader today with a 2.31% gain to 17,383.94. Japan’s NIKKEI rebounded as well by 1.23% to 31,444.32, Taiwan’s TWII also rose by 0.88% to 16,452.73. Although the only index that fell significantly was New Zealand’s NZX 50 with a 0.64% drop to 10,890.69.
Meanwhile, last night US markets climbed up after the PMI numbers came out as Dow Jones (DJIA) edged up by 0.68% to 33,141.38, along with NASDAQ that jumped by 0.93% to 13,139.87. S&P 500 also followed by 0.73% to 4,247.68, while VIX fell by 6.87% to 18.97, indicating lesser fear and volatility in the markets.
Yesterday, crude oil futures dropped by another 2% as Brent futures fell by 2% to $88.07 per barrel, while the West Texas Intermediate dipped by 2.1% to $83.74 a barrel. Both were down by a lot compared to last week when WTI traded over $90 a barrel.
As for this morning, both crude oil barely moved, as Brent dropped slightly by 0.08% to $88 a barrel, as well as WTI that edged down by 0.18% to $83.59 per barrel. Furthermore, the gold futures were almost unchanged with a 0.05% gain to $1,987.1 per Troy ounce, after breaking the $2,000 level a few days ago.
