Asian markets near nine-month highs as dollar edges up

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1% to stand just below its nine-month peak hit on Thursday.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 rose 0.4% and was trading at 16,690 points in early trade sessions on Monday. Photo: IANS

Asian share markets touched nine-month peak in early trade sessions on Monday as the dollar edged up.

Dollar interest rates futures, which had priced out any chance of a rate hike in the days that followed the UK referendum, are now pricing in about a 40% chance of a 0.25% point increase by the end of year, a report by Reuters stated.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1% to stand just below its nine-month peak hit on Thursday.

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Japan's Nikkei .N225 rose 0.4% and was trading at 16,690 points in early trade sessions on Monday.

The Hang Seng index edged lower, falling 0.07% and was trading at 21,949.01 points. SGX Nifty was trading up 0.06% at 8,562 points at 800 hours.

The dollar's index against a basket of six major currencies .DXY =USD hit a 4-1/2-month high of 97.543 on Friday and stood at 97.426 in early Monday trade, Reuters story reported.

Benchmark Brent crude oil was trading up 0.01% at $45.70 a barrel. Oil prices hovered near 2-1/2-month lows after having lost about 4% last week on renewed worries about a global crude glut, the report added.

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