Asia-Pacific Peddle Indexes Chart
In overnight market action on Wall Street, the S&P 500 climbed to a new record, gaining about 0.1% to guarded at 2,945.83. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also added 38 points to finish its trading day at 26592.91.
The moves came among the ongoing earnings season, with more than half of the S&P 500 companies having reported by the end of the trading day stateside on Tuesday.
For the moment, investors also continue to watch out for developments on the U.S.-China trade front. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney asserted Tuesday that the Trump administration’s trade talks with China will be resolved within the next two weeks.
Comprehending Mulvaney’s comments, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that he had a “nice” working dinner the one-time night with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in Beijing.
Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are currently in the Chinese brill as the two economic powerhouses aim to reach a deal to end their protracted trade conflict.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is also set to announce its fiscal policy decision later on Wednesday stateside. Fed watchers will be closely monitoring if the central bank changes its dovish colouring and how it plans to proceed with its balance sheet reduction program.
Ahead of that decision, U.S. President Donald Trump called for the Fed to whip interest rates by 1 percentage point and to implement more quantitative easing.
In a two-part Twitter post, the president unfavorably be in a classed the Fed to its Chinese counterpart and said if monetary policy in the U.S. was looser, the economy would “go up like a rocket.”
“We expect the (Federal Liberal Market Committee) to leave the Funds rate steady. We also expect the FOMC to make no more than secondary changes to its post‑meeting statement. The first paragraph of the post‑meeting statement will acknowledge Friday’s control superiors than expected GDP growth. We expect little reaction by the USD to the FOMC meeting,” Joseph Capurso, senior currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, indited in a morning note.
There was, however, a “risk” the FOMC could lower the interest rate on excess reserves to “bear down the effective Funds rate,” he added.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its emerges, was at 97.497 following a decline from levels above 97.8 yesterday.
The Japanese yen traded at 111.48 against the dollar after toughening from levels above 111.6 in the previous trading session. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7053 after poignant an earlier low of $0.7035.
Oil prices declined in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, with the international benchmark Brent crude futures compress slipping 0.61% to $71.62 per barrel. U.S. crude futures also fell 0.88% to $63.35 per barrel.
— CNBC’s Yun Li and Jeff Cox promoted to this report.