Asian stocks rise on China stimulus cheer; Nikkei sees more profit-taking
Investing.com-- Most Asian stocks rose on Thursday, with Chinese markets extending a rebound after the government announced more monetary stimulus measures, while Japanese shares lagged as mixed cues from the Bank of Japan spurred more profit-taking.
Regional markets also took positive cues from a continued record-high streak on Wall Street, although the pace of these gains now appeared to be slowing amid mixed earnings reports.
China’s Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite indexes were the top performers in Asia, rising 0.8% and 1.5% as they rebounded further from five and four-year lows.
The two indexes had risen sharply on Wednesday after the People’s Bank of China unexpectedly cut its reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for local banks. The RRR dictates the amount of capital reserves that need to be held by Chinese banks, with the cut now freeing up more liquidity to be injected into the economy.
The PBOC also flagged more measures in the pipeline to help shore up economic growth- the clearest sign so far that Beijing planned to deploy more stimulus. The signals helped Chinese markets rebound from multi-year lows, after weakening economic growth spurred massive capital outflows from regional markets.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.6%, also extending a rebound from 15-month lows. But bigger gains on the index were held back by losses in heavyweight electric vehicle stocks, which fell tracking disappointing fourth-quarter earnings from major Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA).
Hong Kong shares of Chinese EV makers NIO Inc (HK:9866), Li Auto (NASDAQ:LI) Inc (HK:2015) and Xpeng (NYSE:XPEV) Inc (HK:9868) sank between 5% and 8%, while those of BYD (HK:1211), which is a key competitor of Tesla, fell 3.5%.
Tesla’s earnings
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