Reuters: Most Read Articles: Australian shares lead Asian rebound; yen softens

Reuters: Most Read Articles Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Manage your social media Best social media tool for image publishing to Facebook and Twitter. Look amazing and delight your followers. Get 40% off when you sign up today. From our sponsors

Australian shares lead Asian rebound; yen softens Oct 28th 2013, 02:31 Share this Email Print Reprints 1 of 7. An office worker walks past the board of the Australian Securities Exchange building displaying its logo in central Sydney April 5, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Daniel Munoz By Ian Chua SYDNEY | Sun Oct 27, 2013 10:31pm EDT SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian stocks scaled a five-year peak on Monday, leading a rebound in Asia after strong results from the likes of Microsoft pushed Wall Street to another record closing high, while investors gave the safe-haven yen a wide berth. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.7 percent, recovering a chunk of last week's 1.1 percent loss -- the biggest in two months -- that was driven by concerns that China may tighten policy to keep prices under control. Australian shares .AXJO put on 1.2 percent to reach their highest since June 2008, Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI added 0.4 percent, and South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 rose 0.3 percent. Japan's Nikkei .N225 climbed 1.0 percent, clawing back some of Friday's 2.7 percent drop. "The market is getting bought back after excessive selling on Friday... but I don't think we will be testing new highs," said Kenichi Hirano, strategist at Tachibana Securities of the Nikkei. Many traders suspect further gains in Asia may be limited as investors keep a wary eye what steps Chinese policymakers might take to cool property prices and inflation. Several markets in Asia are closed for public holidays on Monday, including New Zealand and the Philippines. RISK IN PLAY With risk appetite on the mend, demand for the safe-haven yen waned. That saw the Australian dollar gain 0.5 percent to 93.68 yen, and both the euro and dollar edged up slightly to 134.74 and 97.52 respectively. Against the dollar, the euro was a tad firmer at $1.3814 and within striking distance of Friday's two-year high of $1.3833. The dollar has been under broad pressure in the past few weeks on growing expectations the Federal Reserve will maintain its massive stimulus program into next year. The Fed's policy-setting arm meets on Oct 29-30 and is expected to hold off any move to scale down its $85 billion monthly bond-buying program. Analysts reckon policymakers want to see the impact of the U.S. budget battle that took the country to the brink of a debt default and caused a partial government shutdown. "The FOMC should be a non-event... the Washington debates cloud the growth outlook, so forget about tapering," analysts at JPMorgan wrote in a client note, adding the April 2014 meeting looked like the soonest start for any tapering. In contrast to equities, commodities got off to a sleepy start with copper a touch lower at $7,178.25 a metric ton (1.1023 tons), while U.S. crude oil slipped 0.1 percent to $97.72 a barrel. Spot gold was steady $1,352.44 an ounce. (Additional reporting by Tomo Uetake in Tokyo; Editing by John Mair) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions