TOKYO / HONG KONG / SHANGHAI / TAIPEH (dpa-AFX) – The Asian stock markets showed inconsistent trends on Thursday. The Australian and Japanese stock exchanges, which had given way the day before, stabilized somewhat, while other financial centers fell slightly.
New data on foreign trade were also responsible for the recovery in Japan. In April exports from the world’s third largest economy rose by 38 percent compared to the same month last year. The result was above the analysts’ expectations of an average of plus 30.8 percent. The gains were even stronger in Australia, where prices had collapsed the day before. By contrast, equities fell slightly in Taiwan. The government of the island state had tightened restrictions nationwide in order to counter the increasing number of corona cases.
Overall, a wait-and-see attitude has prevailed on the Asian stock markets, noted analyst Jeffrey Halley from broker Oanda. It is important to monitor further developments in the US after the members of the US Federal Reserve Board, according to the minutes of the Fed meeting in April, were open to a discussion on a reduction in massive bond purchases. That had boosted US Treasury bond yields. The stock exchanges had been burdened again and again in the past few months by rising yields on fixed-income securities.
The Japanese leading index Nikkei-225 recorded an increase of 0.19 percent to 28 098.25 points. In China, the CSI-300 index with the 300 largest companies on China’s mainland stock exchanges was last 0.44 percent higher at 5195.28 points. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong, on the other hand, lost 0.48 percent in late trading to 28,457.51 points.
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