By Rae Wee
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Asian stocks edged up on Tuesday, though moves were subdued in a holiday-curtailed week, while the greenback held near a two-year high helped by elevated U.S. Treasury yields as investors prepared for fewer Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2025.
After a recent run of central bank decisions, this week is much quieter, with Japan’s October meeting minutes and Australia’s December minutes released on Tuesday morning, providing more details on their decisions to hold rates at the time. There are no Fed speeches and U.S. data is of secondary importance.
Otherwise the themes were largely the same, with the dollar’s strength a burden for commodities and gold.
It is also a headache for emerging market countries from Brazil to Indonesia that are having to intervene to stop their currencies from falling too far and stoking domestic inflation.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.35% early in the session, tracking Wall Street’s overnight gain.
Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.37%, while the broader Topix ticked down 0.03%. [.T]
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has told the White House it is unable to reach a consensus on national security risks involved in Nippon Steel’s bid for U.S. Steel, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
Shares of Nippon Steel last traded 1.5% higher.
Also in Japanese companies news, Honda’s stock price surged nearly 17%, while that of Nissan’s eased 0.07%.
The two are in talks to merge by 2026, they said on Monday, a historic pivot for Japan’s auto industry that underlines the threat Chinese electric vehicle makers now pose to the world’s long-dominant legacy car makers.
In China, the CSI300 blue-chip index rose 0.5%, while the Shanghai Composite Index advanced 0.47%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped 0.7%.
Still, investors remain cautious on the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy as it continues to battle a stuttering recovery despite Chinese leaders pledging more support.
“China faces significant challenges entering 2025. The ongoing real estate crisis has shattered consumer confidence while a potential trade war with the United States could trigger the worst growth slowdown in decades,” said Ronald Temple, chief market strategist at Lazard.
“Investor expectations have been raised and dashed more than once in China in recent years, and 2025 may prove to be no different. China’s economic and market outlook might largely depend on the speed and magnitude of government reforms.”