Asia markets rise, Japanese yen strengthens on suspected intervention, eyes on Fed meeting

Japan (NKY:IND) market closed. The Japanese yen rebounded as much as 2% toward 155 per dollar on Monday after sinking to as low as 160.2 earlier in the session, in what markets regarded as a possible government intervention as Japanese banks have been reportedly dumping dollars aggressively.

China (SHCOMP) +0.67%. Data released over the weekend showed that industrial profits in China climbed 4.3% year-on-year in the January to March period, much slower than the 10.2% growth seen in the January to February period.

Hong Kong (HSI) +0.85%.

India (SENSEX) +0.73%.

Australia (AS51) +0.77%.

In the U.S., on Friday, all three major indexes ended higher driven by strong earnings reports from Alphabet and Microsoft and as investors shrugged off another hot US inflation report released on Friday, while looking ahead to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision this week.

U.S. stock futures edged higher on Monday as the major averages came off a winning week, while investors look forward to more corporate earnings, economic data and the Federal Reserve’s policy decision this week: Dow +0.27%; S&P 500 +0.25%; Nasdaq +0.35%.

Week ahead: In the US, all eyes will be on the Fed’s interest rate decision on Wednesday, followed closely by the labor market report on Friday. Also, investors will be scrutinizing ISM Manufacturing and Services PMI’s, alongside JOLTs job openings data, foreign trade figures, factory orders, and CB consumer confidence index.

Also, S&P Global will publish manufacturing PMIs for China, Canada, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Russia, and Switzerland.

Currencies: (JPY:USD), (CNY:USD), (AUD:USD), (INR:USD), (HKD:USD), (NZD:USD).

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