Asian Markets Lifted by Fed Decision to Maintain Status Quo

Asian stocks shot higher across the board Thursday, buoyed by the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to stick to the status quo, as well as rising commodity prices.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong and Korea's Kospi were both up 1%, while the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.8% and the Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.7%. Japan was closed for a public holiday.

Overnight, the Federal Reserve opted to hold its key short-term interest rate steady. Asia-based traders welcomed the news as a rate rise would have pulled money out of emerging markets.

Fed officials also cut their 2016 growth forecast for the U.S. economy to 1.8%, from a 2.0% projection in June, and lowered their long-term view on the growth rate to 1.8% from 2%.

Some in the market were caught off-guard by the strength of the relief rally.

"It took me a bit by surprise," said Daniel So, a strategist China Merchants Bank International Ltd. "Of course it is good news for the financial markets in the short term, but the market has expected this and the interest rate risk hasn't gone away."

The Fed's move followed the Bank of Japan's announcement Wednesday that it left unchanged its negative interest rate on certain commercial-bank deposits and said it would introduce a 10-year interest-rate target.

Despite the dissent of three more hawkish Federal Open Market Committee members, the consensus around a rate increase before the end of the year appears solid. According to Chicago Mercantile Exchange's FedWatch tool, there is a 59.3% chance of a change in interest rates at the December meeting, a touch higher than the previous day's probability.

Elsewhere, oil and metals prices rose strongly on the back of a softer dollar, with the global Brent crude benchmark gaining $0.50 to trade at $47.32 a barrel, while copper and aluminum rose 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively. The move higher supported related stocks. In Australia, BHP Billiton jumped 2.7% and Rio Tinto surged 2.8%.

Write to Ese Erheriene at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 21, 2016 23:05 ET (03:05 GMT)

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