Asian stocks: In search of a firm direction

• Asian shares struggle around multi-month top amid a lack of major catalysts.
• US-China trade deal in limbo, Fedspeak fails to offer clear signs.
• BOE, trade headlines will be in the spotlight.

With the mixed signals concerning the “Phase One” trade deal between the United States (US) and China dragging the market optimism, coupled with a lack of clear direction from the Federal Reserve (Fed) officials, Asian stocks remain sluggish while heading into the European session on Thursday.

The US-China deal, previously delayed to December, seems to witness much noise as the speculations of the US canceling December tariff hikes match no response from the Trump administration. On the other hand, Fedspeak keeps cheering the current monetary policy while also being skeptic about future inflation and growth outlook.

With this, the US 10-year Treasury yields and the Bund yields stay under pressure while MSC’s gauge of Asia-Pacific shares ex-Japan lose near 0.3% from its highest since early-May. Further, Japan’s NIKKEI and India’s BSE SENSEX remain mostly unchanged while shares from Australia and New Zealand cheer upbeat Aussie trade data.

Moving on, Indonesia’s IDX Composite slumps around -1.32% amid doubts over the key data despite Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati’s readiness for the check. Additionally, Chinese shares keep the red while that of Philippines and South Korea are flashing less than 0.1% figures of momentum.

Investors will now keep an eye over the Bank of England’s (BOE) monetary policy meeting, which will also offer the Quarterly Inflation Report (QIR), coupled with second-tier US data and Fedspeak. However, this doesn’t tame the importance of trade headlines to move the markets.