Asian Stock Market Showed Gains As Fed Kept Current Interest Rates

Asian stocks and US futures saw gains following the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike concerns

Sophia Cruz•Thursday, May 2, 2024•1 min read

In today’s trading session, Asian stocks and US futures saw gains following the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike concerns, while the Japanese yen experienced volatility amidst a report of potential intervention from Japan.

Asian Stock Market Showed Gains As Fed Kept Current Interest Rates

The Japanese Yen spiked as much as 2% fueled by rumors of renewed intervention by Japanese officials to purchase yen, along with a weak US dollar after the Fed meeting. However, the yen later retraced its gains, undoing its earlier surge. The dollar was trading at 155.31 yen, a sight increase from 154.91 yen.

According to Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, Japan’s Ministry of Finance, via the Bank of Japan, resumed its sales of US dollars to maintain stability in the yen as expected. In fact, the Japanese government is tapping into its massive 1.2 trillion USD reserve, aiming to capitalize on the dollar holdings acquired back in 2000. Innes also stated that the objective was to stabilize the yen within the range of 155-157 against the dollar.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index went down by 0.1% to 38,236.07.

Losses remained relatively contained as investors refrained from making significant moves ahead of an extended holiday weekend in the market.

In South Korea, the Kospi declined by 0.2% to 2,686.30 following official reports indicating that the country’s consumer prices in April rose by 2.9% year-on-year, marking a declaration compared to March’s figures.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong surged by 2.4% to reach 18,190.32. Meanwhile, other markets in China remained shuttered for the Labor Day holiday.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 went up by 0.2% to 7,587.00.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR See More

Sophia Cruz

Financial Writer - Asian & European Desks

Sophia is an experienced writer, reporter and newsdesk member, mostly on the financial sectors. For the past 5 years Sophia has covered a wide variety of topics such as the financial markets, economics, technology, fin-tech and trading. Sophia has been a part of the FX Leaders team since 2017 and works on producing valuable content and information for traders of all levels of experience.