HONG KONG, April 19 ― Asian shares traded cautiously today, with investors weighing China's measures to cushion an economic slowdown and the prospect of aggressive Federal Reserve monetary policy tightening.
Early in the Asian trading day, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.5 per cent while US stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis, were up 0.2 per cent. The People's Bank of China said on Friday it would cut the reserve requirement for all banks by 25 basis points , releasing about 530 billion yuan in long-term liquidity to cushion a slowdown.
Analysts said the key question was whether authorities would make adjustments to the tough anti-Covid-19 measures. A significant cut to global growth expectations from the World Bank, paired with March weakness in China's latest economic numbers injected some pessimism into US markets, which opened yesterday following a holiday-shortened previous week.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was last at 2.845 per cent, after previously hitting 2.884 per cent earlier yesterday, the highest since December 2018, as investors adjusted for the Federal Reserve to raise rates by 50 basis points at its May and June meetings to contain rapid inflation.