Asian shares edge higher, data-packed week ahead
economictimes.indiatimes.com
Beijing on Sunday announced it would halve the stamp duty on stock trading in the latest attempt to boost the struggling market and revive investor confidence.
The help was needed given profits at China's industrial firms fell 6.7% in July from a year earlier, extending this year's slump to a seventh month.
Chinese blue chips shed 2% last week to hit its lows for the year so far, and all eyes will be on the official PMI for August out on Thursday.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan firmed 0.2%, having eked out minor gains last week to break a three-week losing streak.
Japan's Nikkei rose 0.9%, underpinned in part by the persistent weakness of the yen.
S&P 500 futures edged up 0.1% and Nasdaq futures 0.2%, extending last week's modest rise.
The market did manage to weather a slightly hawkish outlook from Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, who reiterated they might have to raise rates again but promised to move «carefully».
«We take this to mean that the FOMC does not intend to hike at the September meeting,» wrote analysts at Goldman Sachs.
«We continue to expect that the FOMC will ultimately decide that further policy tightening is unnecessary, making the hike at the July FOMC meeting the last of the cycle.»
Futures imply around an 80% chance of a steady outcome at the Sept. 20 meeting, and a 54% probability of a hike by year end.
DOWNSIDE RISK ON JOBS
Much will depend on the flow of U.S.
