Stocks in Asia mostly rose Tuesday following gains in the U.S.,
and Australia bounced even as its central bank stood pat on
interest rates and oil fell to a six-year low.
Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was up 1.1%, after the
Reserve Bank of Australia said it would likely move cautiously to
see how the economy responds to earlier interest-rate cuts before
lowering them further.
The Australian dollar dipped slightly and was at 0.7619 to the
U.S. dollar versus around 0.7638 before the publication of minutes
from the bank's March 3 policy meeting.
Analysts say they expect further easing by Australia, in line
with moves by central banks throughout the region. While the
central bank says it is pausing to evaluate the impact "they've
left the door wide open for another cut," says Chris Hunter,
Western Union Business Solutions" corporate dealing manager. The
RBA cut rates to a record low of 2.25% in February.
Stocks in the region were getting a boost from overnight gains
in the U.S., where the market rebounded from Friday's losses.
The Nikkei Stock Average was up 0.8%. Trading volumes were
light, however, with investors awaiting announcements from the Bank
of Japan as well as from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
"Investors will get the BOJ's take on the post (April 2014)
tax-hike economic picture, and will be able to draw some general
conclusions as to the pace of inflation growth," says Daisuke Uno,
strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. "That, in turn, should
paint a broad picture of when to expect another round of central
bank easing,"
The U.S. Federal Reserve holds a two-day meeting starting
Tuesday, where investors expect the central bank to signal that it
could raise short-term interest rates as early as June.
-- Bradford Frischkorn contributed to this article.
Write to Chao Deng at Chao.Deng@wsj.com
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