Asian indexes in green territory; China’s new Politburo in focus

Major stock indexes in Asia traded in green territory on Wednesday, with participants digesting a strong close in Wall Street and as attention shifted to China’s new leadership presentation.

Australia ASX +7.00 +0.12% 5,969.50 OPEN

Shanghai Comp +4.04 +0.12% 3,392.29 CLOSED

Hang Seng Index +205.62 +0.73% 28,360.59 OPEN

Nikkei 225 +28.84 +0.13% 21,834.01 OPEN

TSEC 50 Index +4.09 +0.04% 10,747.87 OPEN

No relevant reports were released in Asian hours. Attention was directed at the first plenary session of the 19th Central Committee, in which new members of the Politburo Standing Committee have been officially presented.

In the previous session, market participants carefully monitored the seventh day of the Communist Party one-in-five-years congress. The event served to consolidate Xi Jinping.

Xi’s financial and economic adviser Lui He was reappointed to the Central Committee. Investors believe this is a sign that Xi intends to deepen his economic strategy in the next five years.

Wall Street top three indexes ended higher on Tuesday in the light of better-than-expected earnings from key players, including Caterpillar, United Technologies and 3M.

Caterpillar’s earnings per share came in at $1.95 while revenue was of $11.413 billion, in both cases outperforming analysts’ expectations of $1.27 per share and sales of $10.649 billion.

United Technologies also presented better-than-expected results. 3M said Q3 earnings per share were $2.33 on revenues of $8.172bn vs an estimated $2.21 on sales of $7.927bn.

Investors remained on a positive vias over speculation that President Donald Trump’s tax reform will be passed before the end of 2017. Sources from House Republicans said on Tuesday the tax bill will be unveiled on November 1.

Ahead in the session, traders will be paying attention to the German lfo business climate index for October as of 08:00 GMT, UK’s third-quarter economic growth rate half an hour later and US durable goods orders and new home sales at 12:30 GMT and 14:00 GMT respectively.

Fort Financial Services