Skip to footer

Federal Reserve stays the course boosting Asian stocks

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S. central bank will continue to buy bonds, easing borrowing rates. The Fed is awaiting further employment gains before it plans to change its policy. 

|
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke leaves following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting and a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.

| BANGKOK

Asian stock markets rose Thursday, signaling approval of the U.S. central bank's message that it will keep interest rates at record lows despite recent signs of improvement in the world's biggest economy.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said at the end of a two-day policy meeting that the Fed won't alter its aggressive monetary easing — $85 billion in monthly bond purchases to push down borrowing costs — until it is convinced the economy's gains can be sustained.

Fed officials reinforced their plan to keep short-term interest rates at rock-bottom levels at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent. The current unemployment rate is 7.7 percent.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 1.2 percent to 12,618.01 as the yen's decline continued to boost exporters. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.1 percent to 22,283.33. South Korea's Kospi added 0.1 percent to 1,960.39. But Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.3 percent to 4,951.90.

Traders, meanwhile, are still waiting to see how Cyprus will stave off bankruptcy after the country's government rejected a plan to contribute to a bailout package by seizing money from people's bank accounts.

Cyprus needs to come up with 5.8 billion euros ($7.5 billion) on its own in order to secure 10 billion euros in rescue loans from international creditors.

Officials on Wednesday pursued a new bailout strategy that could include a loan from ally Russia in exchange for natural gas leases and selling assets from its most troubled banks. Nearly a third of the deposits in Cyprus' banks are believed to be owned by Russians.

If Cyprus doesn't work out a way to get the money it needs, the banks could fail and fuel financial chaos that could eventually cause the country to leave the euro. That's a scenario European policymakers are fighting to avoid for fear that an exit by one may spell the eventual end of the currency union.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was down 6 cents to $93.44 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract for April rose 80 cents to settle at $92.96 on the Nymex on Wednesday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.2950 from $1.2943 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar rose to 96.01 from 95.89 yen.

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Federal Reserve stays the course boosting Asian stocks
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0321/Federal-Reserve-stays-the-course-boosting-Asian-stocks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe