BackAsian shares hit 2-week high on central banks’ liquidity move
Asian shares hit 2-week high on central banks’ liquidity move
PremiumTokyo: Asian shares rallied to two-week highs on Thursday, building on strong global gains after the world’s six major central banks moved to tame a liquidity crunch for European banks by providing cheaper dollar funding.
The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the central banks of Canada, Britain, Japan and Switzerland said on Wednesday they would lower the cost of existing dollar swap lines by 50 basis points from 5 December, and arrange bilateral swaps to provide liquidity for other currencies.
Japan’s Nikkei also surged above its 25-day moving average to a two-week high, gaining 2 percent.
Chinese shares outperformed, with the Hang Seng Index surging 5.3% after Beijing cut the reserve requirement ratio for commercial lenders on Wednesday for the first time in three years late on Wednesday, signalling a policy shift as global weakness weighs on China’s economy.
“It’s clearly a risk-on day given everything that happened overnight," said Su-Lin Ong, senior economist at RBC Capital Markets.
Industrial metals such as copper, zinc and aluminium jumped as funding strains eased, while the policy step by China, a huge commodity importer, lifted commodity currencies. The Australian dollar stood at $1.0210, slipping from an earlier high of $1.0280 62, after jumping 3% to $1.0335 on Wednesday.
The euro stood at $1.3445 after jumping to a one-week high of $1.3531 on Wednesday while the dollar index slumped to a two-week trough at 77.923, before recovering a bit of ground to last stand at 78.367.
“We see this move as bullish risk as it is more of a precautionary USD liquidity injection to be used in the uncertain months ahead, as opposed to a response to an already-existing USD shortage," Nomura analysts Stanley Sun and Charles St-Arnaud wrote in a note.
But some analysts were more cautious, saying the central banks’ moves just bought more time for Europe as it battles to contain its worsening debt crisis.
“This just means they expanded emergency measures. The more important point is whether Europe is going to have a bigger bailout fund and that’s still up in the air," said Soichiro Monji, chief strategist at Daiwa SB Investments, in Tokyo.
CRUCIAL QUESTIONS UNANSWERED
The central banks’ move could warm investor sentiment toward riskier assets as it aims to ease severe funding strains for European banks which are making them increasingly reluctant to lend.
But European officials have so far failed to nail down who will finance a bailout scheme, which is vital to keeping the crisis from engulfing the continent’s biggest economies.
China’s monetary easing reflected the spreading global impact of Europe’s two-year-old debt crisis, which was confirmed on Thursday by data showing Chinese factory activity shrank in November for the first time in nearly three years.
The PMI fell to 49 from 50.4 in October, and China’s export orders fell sharply.
China joined the central banks of Brazil and Thailand which also cut interest rates on Wednesday to fend off growing fears that the euro zone crisis will push the global economy back into a recession.
Gold steadied after rising nearly 2% on Wednesday for its biggest three-day rally in more than a month, as investors sought a hedge against currency depreciation after the central bank action.
The liquidity action by central banks followed a day after European officials agreed to strengthen the region’s rescue fund and seek more aid from the International Monetary Fund.
Germany suggested it was open to increasing the IMF’s resources through bilateral loans or more special drawing rights, reversing the stance Berlin took earlier this month at the Cannes G20 summit.
The policy shift came as Germany presses its EU partners to agree at a crucial European Union summit on 9 December, on treaty changes to create coercive powers to make euro zone countries change their budgets if they breach EU deficit and debt rules.
Reflecting easing financing conditions, euro/dollar cross-currency basis swaps narrowed across the three-month to one-year maturity curve on Wednesday.
Asian credit markets strengthened, with spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment grade index tightening by about 20 basis points on Thursday.
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