Asian stocks: Bulls cheer China data despite looming trade/political uncertainty

• Better than forecast China trade data, global yield recovery please Asian buyers.
• Trade tussle prevails after the US banned Chinese products from government departments, PBOC again inflates Yuan reference rate.

Even if looming uncertainty over the US-China trade deal and pessimism surrounding global economy prevail, Asian stocks remain positive, benefiting from China’s July month trade data, ahead of the European market open on Thursday.

Not only headline Trade Balance but Imports and Exports numbers also beat market consensus during early Asian morning. The data followed the Financial Times’ news that the US bans major Chinese companies’ equipments from the government departments.

Elsewhere, Japan – South Korea trade tension also entertained momentum traders whereas tension surrounding the Middle East plays its role to trigger oil’s upswing.

As a result, MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares ex-Japan marks 0.36% by the press time while Japan’s NIKKEI flashes 0.55% gains. Further, Australia’s ASX 200 and China’s HANG SENG both benefited from the dragon nation’s trade data while Indian SENSEX and New Zealand NZX 50 portray the aftershocks of big rate cuts by their respective central-banks, announced Wednesday.

It should also be noted that global treasury yields are also on the course to recovery with the US 10-year treasury yields flashing a gain of nearly 4 basis points (bps) to 1.730% by the time of writing.

Moving on, lack of data/events on the economic calendar keeps the market attention on trade/political headlines.