The upscale shopping district of Ginza in Tokyo, Japan, on Saturday, May 4, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly higher on Wednesday after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut its benchmark lending rate and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced he would step down in September.
Kishida said he would not run for re-election as LDP leader and pledged support for the new LDP leader, according to a Reuters translation of his statement in Japanese.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate to 5.25%. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the central bank to keep rates at 5.5%.
In South Korea, the country's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 2.5% from 2.8% in July, marking its lowest level since October 2023.
In Japan, business sentiment among manufacturers turned slightly less confident in August than the previous month, according to the Reuters Tankan survey.
The Tankan survey, which tracks the Bank of Japan’s quarterly survey of the same name, showed that the sentiment index for manufacturers fell to +10 in August, while that for non-manufacturers fell to +24. The gauges were +11 and +26 in the July survey.
Reuters attributed this to weak demand from China, which affected corporate sentiment, noting that this survey also comes after the Bank of Japan raised benchmark interest rates in July to their highest level since 2008.
Japan Nikkei 225 Index The benchmark Nikkei average rose 0.58 percent to close at 36,442.43 after Kishida's announcement, while the broader Topix index rose 1.11 percent to close at 2,581.9. Both indexes posted gains for a third straight day.
South Korea Cosby The Kosdaq Small Cap Index ended the day up 0.88% at 2,644.5, while the Kosdaq Small Cap Index jumped 1.56% to close at 776.83.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index saw a smaller rise of 0.31%, closing at 7,850.7.
The country's securities regulator is suing the ASX for “making misleading statements” regarding the Clearing House Electronic Sub-Registration System, or CHESS, a computer system used to settle trades on the exchange.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission noted that the ASX had said the CHESS replacement project was “on track”, but at the time of the announcements, “the project was not progressing according to plan and the ASX had no reasonable basis to suggest that the project was on track to meet future milestones”.
In contrast to the rest of Asia, Hong Kong Hang Seng Index The Shanghai Stock Exchange Index fell 0.55% in the final hour of trading, while China's CSI 300 Index fell 0.75% to a seven-month low of 3,309.24.
U.S. stocks rose overnight and approached record levels hit last month after data showed producer prices rose less than expected in July.
The producer price index, a measure of wholesale inflation, rose 0.1% last month. Economists had expected the reading to show a 0.2% monthly increase in July, in line with the previous month’s reading, according to the Dow Jones Consensus Estimate.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.04% to 39,765.64 points, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.43%.
The S&P 500 rose 1.68%, coming within about 5% of its record high hit in July.
Investors will be looking ahead to the US July CPI figures, due out on Wednesday.
—CNBC's Brian Evans and Sarah Main contributed to this report.
