The Tokyo stock market is recovering from Monday’s rout amid concerns that the Fed is too slow to respond to signs of weakness in the US economy. Japanese stocks rose in early trading on Tuesday, recovering from the previous day’s historic 12 percent retreat.
The Reserve Bank of Australia decided to keep its key interest rate unchanged at 4.35% on Tuesday. It’s a lesson in how many central banks are keeping an eye on global market unrest, but remain concerned enough with inflation to keep them from moving in just one direction.
Stock markets pared losses on Wall Street, supported by upbeat US services data that eased worries about a coming recession. The Nasdaq Composite, which had fallen 6.3% at the Wall Street open, clawed back as much as 2.8% of its decline, while the S&P 500 fell 2.4%, compared with 4.1 at the open.
Nvidia fell 14.5% at the market open, but the decline eased to 6%.
European shares also recovered some of their losses.
The Chinese yuan has strengthened against the dollar in recent days, helped by carry trade moves. The yuan is often used as an alternative to the Japanese yen for investors who want to borrow at low interest rates and place the money in higher-yielding currencies such as the dollar.
In Asia, the Nikkei Stock Average ended the morning session up 9.4 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi rose about 3 percent, partially reversing Monday’s declines. The yen, a big driver of market moves in recent days, is giving back some gains, trading at 145 to the dollar, compared with 142 to the dollar at its strongest point on Monday. The wave of gains in the Japanese market is led by shares of big technology companies such as Tokyo Electron 8035.T, up more than 16 percent, and Advantest 6857.T, up 14.5 percent.
Stock markets tumbled on Monday, with Japanese shares down 12.4%, the biggest daily drop since Black Friday in 1987, on fears that the United States could be headed for recession.