Asia Pacific stocks trade flat to negative after record highs on Wall Street
|- Asian equities are under pressure despite the dovish RBA minutes.
- Stocks on Wall Street rose to record highs on Monday.
Stocks in Asia are trading mixed at press time with Australian equities reporting marginal losses even though the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) monetary policy meeting showed the central bank is ready to adjust interest rates if required.
Japan's Nikkei is currently trading 0.80% lower on the day and the Shanghai Composite is shedding 0.26%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 is down 0.05% as of writing.
Meanwhile, shares in New Zealand, Hong Kong, and South Korea are flashing marginal losses. The MSCI Asia ex-Japan index is flat lined.
The RBA minutes released at 01:30 GMT showed the board members are willing to cut rates for the third time this year, if required, to boost inflation and growth. Further, the minutes said the jobs growth would continue to moderate over the coming months and the slack in the labor market will remain for some time.
The central bank cut the cash rate to a new all-time low of 1.00% earlier this month, having cut rates by 25 basis points in June.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to a new record high of 27,359 and the S&P 500 closed just above the flatline with the bleak outlook for earnings season keeping the gains under check.
In FX markets, the Dollar Index, which tracks the value of the greenback against majors, is currently trading just below 97.00, having risen by 0.21% on Monday. TheNZD/USD pair rose to a three-month high of 0.6736 earlier today following the release of an upbeat New Zealand inflation data for the second quarter.
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