HONG KONG: Asian markets extended gains on Wednesday (Sep 10), with Tokyo and Seoul emulating a record day on Wall Street as fresh data pointing to a weakening United States jobs market ramped up expectations for a series of Federal Reserve rate cuts.
Eyes are now on the release of inflation figures that could help guide the US central bank’s decision-making for the rest of the year.
Figures on Tuesday showed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had revised down the number of new jobs in the 12 months through March by a record 911,000, suggesting the economy was slowing quicker than thought.
The reading came after news on Friday of another big miss on August’s non-farm payrolls report.
Fed boss Jerome Powell last month indicated cuts were in the pipeline, having batted away long-running pressure from US President Donald Trump to do so owing to worries about stubbornly high inflation.
Analysts said the only question was now how big a reduction would be made at the bank’s policy meeting next week.
“The punchy revision will only accelerate the pressure on the Fed to ease in September, and throughout the balance of 2025,” said Chris Weston at Pepperstone.
“While expectations could evolve if we get a benign core (consumer price index) print, at this stage, the Fed is far more likely to cut by 25 basis points and to guide with a strong bias that more cuts are to come in the months ahead.”
After all three main indexes on Wall Street ended at record highs, Asia continued the positive run on Wednesday with tech firms among the best performers.
Tokyo ended at an all-time high, as did Seoul, where South Korean traders were hopeful the government would not implement a proposal to lower the capital gains tax threshold for stocks.
