BENGALURU: Thai stocks led gains among emerging Asian markets on Wednesday, as China’s approval for a trillion-yuan sovereign bond issue to revive its economy boosted investor sentiment, while stocks in Indonesia also drew strength from support measures there.
Equities in Thailand gained 1.3% while those in China advanced about 0.5%.
China’s top parliament body approved a 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) sovereign bond issue and passed a bill to allow local governments to frontload part of their 2024 bond quotas, in a move to support the economy.
Stocks in India, Malaysia and Taiwan also rose between 0.2% and 0.6%.
“We as a whole remain cautious on whether there would be major sustainable climbs in Asian assets from the China news,” Maybank analysts said in a note.
Stocks in Jakarta jumped 0.8% and the rupiah was down 0.1%.
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo unveiled measures on Tuesday to support growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, and he reassured businesses that the rupiah’s recent rate of depreciation against the dollar was still “safe”.
Other regional currency markets were broadly mixed, with the Malaysian ringgit and Singapore dollar edging 0.2% and 0.1% higher, respectively.
The South Korean won slipped 0.4%, while shares fell 0.6%. The country will report its advance estimates for third-quarter GDP on Thursday.
Riskier emerging Asian assets have come under pressure as fears of “higher-for-longer” interest rates in the US led to bond sell-offs in recent days that pushed the yield on 10-year Treasury notes to 5.0% for the first time since 2007.
Separately, in the Philippines, the central bank Governor Eli Remolona said the bank remained open to an off-cycle policy rate hike, which could happen as early as its weekly review on Thursday.
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