Oil held a two-day gain as a report showing a drop in US stockpiles and threats to supply countered concerns about a slowdown.
Equity benchmarks in Japan, China and Hong Kong shifted between losses and gains. Australian shares clung to a firm advance and futures contracts for European stocks climbed.
The yen moved fractionally lower after its biggest one-day jump since 1998 on Tuesday, when it climbed almost 4% against the dollar on a surprise policy adjustment from the Bank of Japan.
Japan’s two-year government yield rose above zero for the first time since 2015, while 10-year Treasury yields rose slightly in Asia after jumping 10 basis points for the second consecutive session on Tuesday.
The impact of the BOJ’s surprise decision to let yields on 10-year government bonds trade up to 0.5%, from a previous ceiling of 0.25%, continues to reverberate. The yield was around 0.45% on Wednesday. Japanese bank stocks traded higher for a second day on expectations that rising interest rates will boost their profitability.
The move marks the start of a shift toward Japan normalizing its monetary policy, said Amy Xie Patrick, head of fixed income strategy for Pendal Group Ltd. “They’re at the beginning of that journey,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “This is a course of action they have to follow through on to send the message to currency speculators out there that the yen funding trade isn’t a one-way bet.”
Traders are on guard for the prospect of Japanese institutions repatriating money held in overseas stocks and bonds. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was steady after the prior session’s decline, making commodities priced in the US currency more attractive for overseas buyers.
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