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Asian Shares Rise Ahead of Fed Decision
Shares gain despite oil-price losses; many expect Federal Reserve to raise rates for first time since 2006
By GREGOR STUART HUNTER
Updated Dec. 16, 2015 3:49 a.m. ET
Asian stocks rose Wednesday, even as oil prices fell, hours before the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006.
Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average rose 2.6%, South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.9% and the Australian S&P/ASX 200 rose 2.4%.
Chinese stocks also rose, with the Shanghai Composite up 0.2% and the smaller Shenzhen market up 0.7%. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index rose 2% while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, a gauge of Chinese companies with Hong Kong listings, rose 2.1%.
Overnight gains for oil prices receded during Asian trading as U.S. congressional leaders announced a tax-and-spending deal that includes provisions to lift the country’s ban on oil exports, potentially adding further supply to global oil markets if it becomes law.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 1.3% to 36.85 dollars a barrel and Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 1% to 38.36 dollars.
Lifting the ban is likely to unsettle oil markets further, economists said. “The U.S. might be an importer of oil, but the dependency is decreasing,” analysts from Nordea wrote in a research report. That adds to concerns about “large stock holdings in a nervous market already swamped with oil,” they said.
Lower oil prices have a “mixed impact” for Asia, said Herald van der Linde, Asia equity strategist at HSBC Holdings PLC. It helps consumers like China, India and South Korea but further pinches exporters like Malaysia and Indonesia, he added.
Oil prices gained overnight ahead of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s oil inventory data later Wednesday. The market expects a slowing pace in drawdowns of crude-oil stocks compared with the previous week.
Short bets on oil stocks, when investors borrow shares to book a profit if stocks fall, had built up over the year as crude prices fell. Even if just a small portion of these start unwinding, “that’s going to be enough to move markets in and of themselves,” said Angus Nicholson, a market strategist at IG.
Meanwhile, Chinese energy stocks gained Wednesday, after officials said a day earlier they would temporarily stop adjusting domestic gasoline and diesel prices, which could raise costs for consumers and margins for suppliers.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., also known as Sinopec, rose 7.3% and PetroChina Co. gained 5% in Hong Kong.
In corporate news, Singapore-listed Noble Group Ltd. shares jumped as much as 12.8% after announcing that it is in talks with potential buyers for its 49% holding in its agricultural-commodities unit. Chinese state-backed grain trader Cofco, which bought a 51% stake in the unit last year for 1.5 billion dollars is among the bidders for the remaining shares, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Noble shares were last up 7.7% but remain down 63% year-to-date amid accusations of accounting irregularities by an anonymous research group. The company recently said it was seeking asset sales to help repair its balance sheet.
Prada SpA shares plunged 7% in Hong Kong after the luxury retailer posted a 26% drop in net profit for the first nine months of the year.
Elsewhere in Asia, markets are awaiting the outcome of the Federal Reserve’s meeting.
“We do not think the Fed will be distracted by recent U.S. credit-market stress,” economists from Standard Chartered wrote in a research report, referring to deep selloff in the U.S. high-yield debt market in recent days, which eased Tuesday. “The bar for the Fed not to hike is sizable...market volatility has stayed contained and stocks have remained resilient.”
Prices of fed-funds futures reflect an 81% probability that the central bank will begin raising rates after its meeting concludes later Wednesday, according to data from CME Group.
Gold prices were last up 0.2% at 1,063.80 dollars a troy ounce.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the strength of the dollar against a basket of currencies, ticked down 0.1% to 98.08.
Write to Gregor Stuart Hunter at gregor.hunter@wsj.com
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