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Asia-Pacific Stocks Rise on Receding Anxiety About Global Trade https://ift.tt/2pGYnuC The start-of-week global stock rally continued Tuesday, with Asia-Pacific equities building on Monday afternoon gains and U.S. markets poised to rise further. Last week’s stock selloff was sparked by fears of a U.S.-China trade war, but those worries have eased. Following a 3% surge on Wall Street, Asian stock benchmarks were higher across the board. Japan led the way with the Nikkei closing up 2.7%, as it continued to recover from Friday’s 4.5% slide. Beyond the broad improvement in sentiment, Japanese stocks were also helped as the yen continued to pull back and concerns about domestic politics eased. Former Ministry of Finance official Nobuhisa Sagawa told Parliament that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe didn’t order officials to alter documents in a disputed sale of government land. Outside of “political noise,” fundamentals at Japanese companies remain attractive with strong domestic demand, said Tony Glover, head of investment management at BNP Paribas Asset Management Japan. Gains of about 1% were seen in locales including New Zealand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. S&P 500 futures were recently up 0.4% after the index’s 2.7% jump Monday. Small-cap benchmarks in China continued to rise strongly Tuesday. After turning an early 1.9% drop Monday into a 3.2% gain, the startup-heavy ChiNext Price Index rose a further 2.6%. Investor apprehension about a potential trade war between Washington and Beijing is receding after word that negotiations have started to improve U.S. access to China’s mainland markets. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also highlighted China’s willingness to continue negotiations with the U.S. Despite the upbeat optimism for stocks generally, some are wary about the rebound. “There is no rush to get into the markets,” said Joanne Goh, a regional equity strategist at DBS Bank in Singapore. She highlighted pricey valuations despite volatility and price declines in many markets to start the year. And as central banks around the world pare easy-money policies, market volatility should persist—especially since valuations aren’t as cheap as two years ago—said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP Capital in Sydney. “You don’t have a valuation buffer as you had in the past.” —Kosaku Narioka and Lin Zhu contributed to this article. Write to Kenan Machado at kenan.machado@wsj.com Business via WSJ.com: What's News US http://online.wsj.com March 27, 2018 at 02:09AM
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