SINGAPORE – Asia Pacific stocks rose on Tuesday as markets in mainland China remain closed for the New Year holidays.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index, which has returned to trading after the holidays in recent days, rose 1.30%.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was up 1.44% while the Topix index was up 0.64%. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.39%.
Australian stocks also rose, with the S&P / ASX 200 gaining 0.36%.
MSCI’s broadest index for stocks in the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan rose 0.5%.
RBA meeting minutes on monetary policy
Minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s February monetary policy meeting, published on Tuesday, showed that members concluded that “very significant monetary support would be needed for some time as it would take several years to achieve the objectives Bank for inflation and unemployment are reached “.
“In light of this, it would be premature to consider withdrawing monetary incentives,” added the RBA in the minutes.
The markets in the US were closed on Monday for bank holidays.
Currencies and oil
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback versus a basket of its peers, hit 90.259 after falling above 90.6 late last week.
The Japanese yen traded at 105.48 per dollar after weakening against the greenback from below 105.2 yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $ 0.7794, still higher than below $ 0.772 last week.
Oil prices were higher on the morning of trading hours in Asia and the international benchmark’s Brent crude oil futures rose 0.32% to $ 63.50 a barrel. US crude oil futures rose 1.21% to $ 60.19 a barrel.
