Looking ahead to Thursday's Asian markets, following a day of subdued trading globally, there's a lack of clear momentum as investors turn their focus to next week's significant Bank of Japan policy meeting.
In economic news, attention is on the release of India's wholesale price inflation figures, following yesterday's slightly higher-than-expected consumer inflation data for February and underwhelming industrial production numbers. Despite this, wholesale inflation remains relatively subdued, with the last instance of annual inflation exceeding 1% nearly a year ago.
In Tokyo, indications suggest growing momentum towards a potential interest rate hike by the BOJ next Wednesday, which would mark the end of an eight-year negative interest rate policy and the first rate increase in 14 years.
Sources suggest that the BOJ will consider raising rates pending a positive outcome from a preliminary survey on Friday regarding wage negotiations among major corporations, a crucial element in combatting Japan's persistent deflation.
Toyota Motor's recent announcement of substantial pay increases for factory workers has heightened expectations for widespread wage hikes, further supporting the case for BOJ action.
Additionally, there are signs of progress in tripartite discussions among government, labor, and management to encourage broader wage increases.
Japanese stocks experienced a modest decline on Wednesday, reflecting profit-taking following last week's record highs and possibly indicating market anticipation of BOJ policy changes.
The yield on two-year Japanese government bonds slightly rose, while the yen remained stable.
Meanwhile, tensions between the U.S. and China escalated further on Wednesday with the passage of a bill by the U.S. House of Representatives targeting TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance.
This bill would require ByteDance to divest its U.S. assets within six months or face a ban, reflecting broader U.S. concerns about national security risks associated with Chinese technology companies.
In other Asian markets, investors are awaiting retail sales data from Indonesia and industrial production and producer price figures from Hong Kong.
Paraphrasing text from "Reuters" all rights reserved by the original author.
