Buildings in Pudong’s Lujiazui Financial District in Shanghai, China, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets rose on Tuesday, led by Chinese shares as Beijing announced a raft of policy easing measures in a rare briefing from central bank governor Pan Gongsheng.
The PBOC will cut the reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points, although it did not provide a specific timeline. It also announced that it would lower its seven-day repo rate from 1.7% to 1.5%.
Pan also said that the authorities could reduce the lending rate by 0.2 to 0.25 percent, without specifying whether he was talking about one or five years. The one-year LPR currently stands at 3.35% and the five-year LPR is at 3.85%.
Other measures include reducing payments on second homes, and 1 trillion yuan ($141.78 billion) in long-term financing.
In Hong Kong Hang Seng Index it rose 2.35% at the open, while China’s CSI 300 rose 1%. Real estate stocks led gains on the CSI 300, while basic materials stocks were the biggest gainers on the HSI.
Australia’s central bank will announce its rate decision again on Tuesday, with economists polled by Reuters expecting the RBA to hold rates at 4.35%.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia said in a paper last week that the flow of economic data since the last meeting “has been moderate or in line with the RBA’s expectations.” As such, the CBA expects a more nuanced statement, but sees no change in language or tone.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded near a flatline slightly ahead of the RBA decision.
Japanese Nikkei 225 was 1.37% higher, while the Topix gained 1% as Japanese markets returned from vacation. This marks the first time that the Nikkei has crossed the 38,000 mark since September 3.
in South Korea Kospi was flat, while the smaller Kosdaq rose 0.85%.
Overnight in the US, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.14%, and reflected the gains made by the other two major US indices.
I S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average touched new closing highs in Monday’s trading session.
The broad market index added 0.28% to end at 5,718.57, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 61.29 points, or 0.15%, to close at 42,124.65.
-CNBC’s Brian Evans and Alex Harring contributed to this report.