Asian Shares Rise Ahead of Start of FOMC

Asian shares followed Wall Street higher on Wednesday, while short-term U.S. bond yields held near 4 1/2-year highs as investors braced for the possibility of the first interest rate hike in the United States in almost a decade.

Japan’s Nikkei .N225 jumped 1.1 percent while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS gained 0.4 percent.

U.S. shares rallied over one percent overnight, in part helped by data showing healthy growth in consumer spending though price action is likely to have been exaggerated by low trading volume ahead of the Fed’s policy verdict on Thursday.

U.S. Treasuries yields jumped on Tuesday, with the policy-sensitive two-year yield US2YT=RR rising about 8 basis points to peak at 0.815 percent, its highest level since April 2011.

It last traded at 0.802 percent in early Asian trade.

The 10-year U.S. notes yield stood at 2.272 percent US10YT=RR, having risen to a 1 1/2-month high of 2.293 percent on Tuesday.

Via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza