Asian stocks rose, with the regional benchmark poised for the best quarter in three years as China moved to support economic growth, sending shares higher in the U.S. and Europe and the yen tumbling against the dollar.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.6 percent to 147.35 as of 9:01 a.m. in Tokyo, on course for a 6.9 percent quarterly advance, the most since the first three months of 2012. China’s central bank announced measures aimed at stemming a property slump after Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said at the weekend that policy makers can do more to support Asia’s largest economy. The Shanghai Composite Index surged 17 percent this year through yesterday and Japan’s Topix index added 11 percent.
“Investors continue to work on the expectation that the People’s Bank of China will deliver more policy reports in coming months and that the U.S. Fed will be cautious about its policy deliberations,” said Matthew Sherwood, head of investment markets research in Sydney at Perpetual Ltd., which manages about $21 billion. “U.S. economic data overnight had no clear trend, but European economic sentiment continued a run of improving data.”
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