Asia markets mixed; Nikkei up 0.3%, Kospi down 0.2%

Asian markets appeared to have lost some of its momentum on Thursday, trading mixed at the open, after US stocks closed near the flatline but still managed to make it further into record territory. Australia's ASX 200 was up 0.23 percent, boost by a 0.42 percent increase in the heavily-weighted financials subindex. In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 0.31 percent, while the Topix was up 0.3 percent. Across the Korean Strait, the Kospi was down 0.19 percent. "In recent days risk sentiment has been buoyed by the expectation of further stimulus and the lack of new news overnight appears to have taken the wind out the market's sails," Rodrigo Catril, a currency strategist at the National Australia Bank, said. "Expectations of stimulus need to be backed up with some action and now the risk of disappointment is starting to rise." Markets have rebounded in recent sessions on the expectation of further stimulus measures in Japan and in the UK. In Japan, stocks had rebounded and the yen weakened against the dollar amid expectations that a double-bazooka of fiscal and monetary easing was on the cards following Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's landslide victory in upper house elections over the weekend. The currency pair traded at 104.14, compared to levels near 100 touched in the previous week. "There is still no clarity on the size, type and timing of fiscal and monetary stimulus in Japan," said Catril. Elsewhere, the dollar traded a touch higher against a basket of currencies; the dollar index was at 96.288 as of 8:42 a.m. HK/SIN, compared to its last close at 96.216. The British pound traded at USD 1.3114 on Thursday, lower than the USD 1.3336 level it reached on Wednesday afternoon Asia time, but up from levels as low as USD 1.28 last week. Analysts said markets appeared "pretty comfortable" with Theresa May as the new prime minister of the UK, taking over from David Cameron. May announced many new cabinet appointments on Wednesday, including key Brexit campaigner and former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who was made foreign minister, while former




Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond replaced George Osborne as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Markets will also focus on the Bank of England's monetary policy decision, due Thursday. A Reuters poll predicted the central bank to cut its bank rate by 25 basis points. "There is no obvious reason for the MPC to delay," analysts at Societe Generale noted. Previously, BOE governor Mark Carney had said some monetary policy easing would likely be required as the UK continued to deal with the ramifications of its decision to quit the European Union. "We also expect a reopening of the QE programme at a pace of 25 billion pounds per quarter, although this may be held back until the publication of the next inflation report at the August meeting," the Societe Generale analysts added. But NAB's Catril said that the BOE would ease policy at its July meeting was "not a given," since the central bank might prefer to wait for its next meeting when "more data will be available to assess the impact from the Brexit vote."

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