Most Asian bourses remain subdued; China shares rise on easing measures

Stock markets across continued to remain in a cautious mood in the new week’s first trading session with most markets trading in a narrow range in close proximity with their previous closing levels. Cues from over the weekend US markets remained disobliging as the report of JP Morgan losing at least $2 billion from a failed hedging strategy counterbalanced positive economic reports indicating US consumer sentiment rose to its highest in more than four years in early May as Americans remained upbeat about the job market. The global condition also remained uncertain with no resolution on Greece which is feared to exit from the European Union. With no political party being successful in cobbling together a coalition government, Greek President has invited the heads of the three top parties along with the small, moderate Democratic Left party for fresh talks in order to avoid fresh elections.

Meanwhile, majority of markets in the region did not lose hefty grounds as the downside was limited by encouraging reports from China where the central bank in order to spur growth in world’s second largest economy announced some liquidity easing measures. The benchmarks in China, Hong Kong and Singapore traded with a slight green tick after People's Bank of China announced cut in bank reserve ratio, the amount of cash banks must set aside as reserves. However, the South Korean equity index traded with over half a percent cut in the session being the top laggard in the space.

Jakarta Composite declined 12.81 points or 0.31% to 4,101.33, KLSE Composite eased 2.20 points or 0.14% to 1,582.12, Nikkei 225 inched down 0.65 points or 0.01% to 8,952.66, KOSPI Composite Index dropped 10.75 points or 0.56% to 1,906.38 and Taiwan Weighted slipped 34.74 points or 0.47% to 7,366.63.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite added 1.16 points or 0.05% to 2,396.14, Hang Seng Index rose 6.94 points or 0.03% to 19,971.57 and Straits Times Index gained 11.62 points or 0.40% to 2,895.02.