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Stocks in Asia were mostly higher overnight, aside from in Japan, where investors were awaiting the outcome of an election on Sunday.
The Nikkei (^N225) slipped 0.6% on the day in Japan, while the Hang Seng (^HSI) rose 0.5% in Hong Kong and the Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) was 0.4% up by the end of the session.
Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, who took office just weeks ago, called the snap general election to drum up support as the ruling Liberal Democrats grapple with a political funding scandal.
Recent upheavals have added to uncertainty for markets, complicating the Bank of Japan’s efforts to shift away from long-standing near-zero interest rates.
Core inflation in Japan’s capital came in at 1.8% in October, lower than the central bank’s 2% target for the first time in five months. This reinforced expectations that the central bank will keep its key interest rate unchanged at a policy meeting next week.
Meanwhile, China’s central bank kept its medium-term lending rate unchanged at 2%. It also issued 700 billion yuan (£75.8bn) in one-year medium-term lending facility loans to financial institutions, according to the bank’s statement.
Across the pond on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.3% to 42,374.36, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2% to 5,809.86 and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) advanced 0.8% to 18,415.49.
In the bond market, the yield on 10-year US Treasury notes dipped to 4.217% from 4.231% late on Wednesday. It has risen from 3.623% on 16 September.
The yield has been rising in recent weeks partly because both candidates in the US presidential election are keen on spending money, which will widen the deficit, according to Mark Malek, chief investment officer at SiebertNXT in New York.
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