Australian stocks rise to decade high, amid positive atmosphere in Asian market

Asian stocks opened on mixed performance but mostly positive, to join its American counterpart in the week's third session, with the Japanese, Chinese, Australian and New Zealand stocks rising, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index and South Korea's Kospi  falling today, Wednesday. This comes amid the release of the first quarter earnings reports of major international companies and banks.

We have followed the controversial Chinese Huawei disclosure of its quarterly results for the first quarter, which showed a 39% increase in revenues from the first quarter of 2018, despite the pressure of the US government on the Chinese company, which invests heavily in the fifth generation networks Which offers speeds up to ten times the current 4G speed.

We would like to point out that many scientists are aganist the new network technology on claims that it have harmful health effects to send data over the 400 MHz frequancies . It is worth noting that, in conjunction with tests of the fifth generation networks in the Netherlands recently, birds fell dead from the sky at the time, while the validity of these scientists' claims aren't yet confirmed in the context of an extensive debate over technology, especially with no testing of its effects on human health prior to publication.

In addition, we have followed the Australian economy's release of inflation data as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed stability at zero, versus 0.5% growth in the fourth quarter of last year, as opposed to expectations of a slowdown of 0.2%. While the core reading of the consumer price index showed a growth slow to 0.3% from the previous quarter's reading and expectations at 0.4%.

In the same context, the annual reading of the consumer price index showed that growth slowed to 1.3% from 1.8% in the fourth quarter, worse than analysts' forecasts of a slowdown of 1.5%. The core annual reading of the consumer price index showed growth slowing to 1.6% versus 1.8% in the fourth quarter, also worse than analysts' forecasts of a 1.7% slowdown in growth, boosting the chances of further cuts in Australian interest rates.

On the contrary, The markets are looking forward to the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meeting with EU leaders on Thursday before heading to Washington for a summit with US President Donald Trump, in which they're expected to discuss a trade deal between the two countries. in addition to an extension of the waiver on U.S. sanctions on Iran and Iran's oil importers.

White House Press Secretary and Spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, said on Tuesday that the United States Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, and the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, will travel to Beijing by the end of this month for another round of trade talks and will meet Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China, Liu He, who will head a Chinese delegation that will visit Washington for further discussions and trade talks on May 8.

Japanese stocks witnessed a rise during today's trading session, with the broader Topix index rising by 0.12% to gain (1.92 point) up to 1,624.89, while Nikkei 225 index also rose by 0.30% (65.71 points) up to 22,325.45.

As for the Chinese stock indices, CSI 300 rose 0.36% to gain 14.62 points and reach 4,033.63, the Shanghai Composite Index also rose 0.16% (4.97 points) to reach 3,203.56.

As for Hong Kong's Hang Sang rose 0.50% (148.95 points) to 30,112.19. While South Korea's Kospi Index fell 0.16% (3.55 points) to 2,216.96.

To New Zealand's NZX 50, which rose 0.63% (62.92 points) to 10,067.76. While Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index also rose 1.09% to gain 68.88 points and reached the level of 6,388.30.