- Asian equities remain pressured, except from Australia and South Korea.
- Russia eyes deeper invasion despite foreign sanctions, US President Biden bans Moscow’s flights from the US airspace.
- Australia’s Q4 GDP arrived strong, South Korea flashed mixed numbers.
- US ADP Employment Change, Fed Chair Powell’s Testimony will decorate calendar.
Markets in Asia-Pacific part ways from stock futures in the US and Europe during early Wednesday as multi-day high prices of oil join harsh sanctions on Russia. Adding to the pessimism could be firmer US Treasury yields and upbeat US data.
To portray the mood, MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares ex-Japan drops around 0.60% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 declines 1.70% by the press time.
It’s worth noting that the shares in Australia print mild gains amid firmer prints of the Q4 Aussie GDP, 3.4% QoQ versus 3.0% forecasts and -1.9% prior. On the same line were South Korean equities even as the nation printed mixed figures of Industrial and Service Sector Output for January.
US President Joe Biden announced the ban on Russian flights from the US airspace during his first State of the Union (SOTU) speech. On the positive side, Biden hints at “self-reliance” and the ability to fight inflation and favored equity futures. Additionally, the unwinding of rate-hike bets also challenges equity bears.
On the other hand, Russia remains determined to achieve its secret ‘goal’ despite global sanctions. However, the prevalence of the Ukraine-Russia peace talks also keeps traders hopeful of a solution to the grim concern on hand.
Biden’s SOTU also criticizes China and weighs on the Chinese stocks while shares from New Zealand, Indonesia and India followed the trend with near 1.0% daily losses at the latest.
Elsewhere, oil prices rose to fresh eight-year high above $100.00 as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies led by Russia, known as OPEC+, is likely to stick to its existing policy of increasing output by 400K barrels per day (BPD) each month in April, per Reuters, despite geopolitical challenge to supplies.
Moving on, news concerning Russia and Ukraine will be a major catalyst for USD/CHF. Also important will be Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s bi-annual testimony and the early signal for Friday’s US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP), namely the ADP Employment Change for February.
Read: S&P 500 Futures, US Treasury yields retreat as US President Biden’s SOTU bans Russian flights