Asian stocks at 2-year high; China, Indonesia set rates

No Wall Street, no problem.

Investors in Asia go into Thursday in a bullish mood with Asian stocks at two-year highs, boosted by strength in tech and calm across global markets that is keeping a lid on volatility and loosening financial conditions.

US markets were closed on Wednesday but investors weren’t fazed by any potential liquidity concerns – the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index leaped more than 1% to its highest since April 2022, and the MSCI World index hit a record high.

Highlights from Thursday’s Asia and Pacific calendar are interest rate decisions from China and Indonesia, and first-quarter GDP figures from New Zealand.

The People’s Bank of China is likely to keep benchmark lending rates unchanged, after holding its medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans steady earlier this week. Markets mostly use MLF rates as a guide to lending benchmarks.

Economic activity and indicators remain sluggish though, and pressure to ease in the coming months is mounting.

Bank Indonesia is also expected to keep its key interest rate on hold, at 6.25%, according to a Reuters poll of economists who pushed out their first rate cut call to early next year from late this year.

That change in outlook was partly driven by the rupiah’s slide to four-year lows against the US dollar, which led the central bank to unexpectedly raise rates in April.

Inflation has been within the bank’s 1.5%-3.5% target range for almost a year, but the US Federal Reserve’s ‘higher for longer’ policy stance and the dollar’s persistent strength have tempered rate cut hopes.

It’s not inconceivable that New Zealand slipped into a technical recession in Q1, albeit an extremely mild one. The consensus forecast in a Reuters poll is for quarter-on-quarter GDP growth of 0.1%, following a contraction of 0.1% in the October-December period.

Back on the market front, if Wednesday’s break higher in Asian stocks is to be a springboard, China may have to get out of its funk – while the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index has risen 12% from its mid-April low, China’s blue chip CSI 300 index has flat-lined.

Asian tech shares are, unsurprisingly, on an Nvidia-inspired roll. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tech index jumped 3.7% on Wednesday, one of its best days this year.

If US financial conditions are a key driver for markets more broadly, investors in Asia should be bullish – they are now the loosest since March, according to Goldman Sachs, and the loosest in two and a half years, according to the Chicago Fed.

In currencies, the yen remains anchored near lows that prompted Tokyo to intervene recently, but traders appear relaxed – one-month dollar/yen implied volatility fell for a sixth day on Wednesday to its lowest since April 8.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Thursday:

– China interest rate decision

– Indonesia interest rate decision

– New Zealand GDP (Q1)

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; editing by Deepa Babington)