Media365
The Hang Seng Index rose 1.8 per cent to 25,245.12 as of 10.37am local time, heading for its biggest gain in a week. The Hang Seng Tech Index gained 1.5 per cent. The mainland’s CSI 300 Index climbed 1.5 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index added 1.4 per cent.
Trump said the US would end its strikes on Iran and that the two sides could still strike a deal, adding that an agreement with Tehran was not a prerequisite for the war to end. He was expected to give an address to the nation later on Wednesday to provide an “important update” on Iran. Tehran reiterated its demands must be met before the war could end.
“Trump setting a two- to three-week horizon for ending the conflict has given the market something it desperately needed – a time frame,” said Stephen Innes, a managing partner at SPI Asset Management. “That is enough to trigger re-engagement. Enough to tell systematic money that the left tail risk is no longer expanding at the same velocity.”
The Middle East hostilities have roiled global financial markets over the past month, with crude oil surging above US$100 a barrel and investors dumping stocks and bonds on fears of stagflation. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s assaults on energy infrastructure in the Gulf region have heightened jitters that the war would last longer than expected and that its damage to the global economy would be more severe.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged more than 4 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi soared 6.6 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 1.8 per cent. That followed a rally in the US overnight, where the S&P 500 jumped nearly 3 per cent.
