The Asian stock markets are expected to open slightly higher on Wednesday, with many of the regional bourses remaining oversold and at attractive valuations.
There also remains some positive sentiment regarding the Spanish bailout, although caution is starting to take hold. In addition, bond yields increased sharply in Italy on Tuesday and the yield on a 10-year Spanish government bond surged to around 6.8 percent.
Further limiting the upside, investors will be cautious ahead of this weekend's critical vote in Greece.
On the U.S. economic front, the Labor Department reported a drop in both import and export prices.
The major U.S. averages finished higher on Tuesday as the Dow jumped 162.57 points or 1.3 percent to finish at 12,573.80, while the NASDAQ advanced 33.34 points or 1.2 percent to end at 2,843.07 and the S&P 500 surged up 15.25 points or 1.2 percent at 1,324.18.
The major European markets also moved higher on Tuesday as the DAX of Germany rose by 0.33 percent and the CAC 40 of France gained 0.14 percent. The FTSE 100 of the U.K. gained 0.76 percent and the SMI of Switzerland climbed by 0.83 percent.
The Asian markets were mostly lower on Tuesday as Japan's Nikkei declined 1 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite lost 0.70 percent, Taiwan shed 0.67 percent, South Korea's KOSPI retreated 0.66 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.43 percent, Indonesia dropped 0.4 percent and Malaysia eased 0.15 percent. Moving higher, Singapore's Straits Times added 0.33 percent, while Thailand collected 0.42 percent and Australia was up 0.2 percent.
by RTT Staff Writer
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