Asian stocks: Look for firm direction amid mixed Trade/Brexit clues

• Asian stocks struggle to justify receding odds of a hard Brexit, trade war fears.
• An 18-month high business moral, Japan’s reiteration of budget fail to please the equity buyers.
• No major data/events add to the market’s lack of direction.

The US officials’ gung-ho about the phase-one seems too boring to the Asian share traders amid looming risks over the hard Brexit and a lack of major catalysts. The Asian equity markets have also ignored the multi-month high of the Thomson Reuters/INSEAD Asian Business Sentiment Index.

With this, the MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan registers a mild gain of 0.10%. Further, Japan’s NIKKEI shrugs off the government’s repeated talks of the massive budget as diplomats signal a reduction in government bond issuance during the next fiscal. Australia’s ASX 200 follows the suit but New Zealand’s NZX 50 cheers the New Zealand (NZ) government’s announcement of a lift in the minimum wage.

Moving on, stocks in China stay on the back foot while those in India awaits the government’s measures to defy the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) anticipated downward revisit to growth figures.

Risk tone stays sluggish with the US 10-year treasury yields losing nearly one basis point to 1.87% while Oil trades near the multi-month high.

Traders will now keep eyes on the European and the UK’s economic calendar ahead of the busy Thursday.