Equities Mostly Higher, BoJ Speak, AU CPI Holds Steady

Regional Asian equities are mostly higher today. Japanese equities are getting a boost from the weaker yen. BoJ speak has been the main focus in the region, Ueda expressed confidence in achieving the price target due to the very low current short-term rate, Suzuki & Tamura mentioned they will do the utmost to ensure FX stability. South Korea had business manufacturing data earlier, while Australia had CPI data.

• Japan equities are higher today as the yen edged closer towards a 34 year low, while investors have also been seen adjusting positions heading into FY end later this week. Exports have been the largest gainers today with wholesale trading and transportation names the top gainers in the sector. BoJ's Tamura is currently speaking in Aomori where he emphasized that accommodative financial conditions will persist, indicating a commitment to maintaining supportive monetary policies. He stresses the importance of future monetary policy guidance in ensuring a gradual move towards policy normalization. Tamura expects a positive cycle of wages and prices to continue and highlights the goal of normalization as restoring the function of interest rates. He expresses optimism that a virtuous cycle in the economy is likely to persist. The Topix is up 0.95%, led higher by real estate names after data showed land prices had climbed, while hawkish comments from the BoJ helped add speculations borrowing costs will remain low, while the Nikkei 225 is up 1.24%.
• South Korean equities opened slightly higher but have erased those gains to now trade in the red. Earlier the BoK business manufacturing and non-manufacturing sentiment indicators printed for April. On the manufacturing side we slipped to 73 from 75. Non-manufacturing eased to 69 from 70. While foreign investors have pumped $3.4b into the markets over the past 5 days. The Kospi is now down 0.10%
• Taiwanese equities are higher today, with the Taiex now up 0.50%, after initially opening a touch lower. Semiconductor names have been the largest contributors to index moves today, while recently there has been a lot of talk from policy officials warning investors to stop flooding the market and pumping stock as they fear stock market bubbles while also looking at cracking down on internet influencers. Taiwan equity flows had largely been tracking SK's however have diverged over the past week with -$955m of net outflows occurring.
• Australian equities are higher today, earlier we had WBC Consumer confidence which fell from the month prior hitting -1.8% vs 6.2% in Feb, while the leading index rose to 0.8% from -0.8% in Jan and finally CPI data was in line with Jan coming in at 3.4% vs 3.5% expected. Most sectors ticked higher today, other than tech and Utilities. The ASX200 closed up 0.51%
• Elsewhere in SEA, New Zealand equities are lower today, down 0.18% earlier NZ released their Budget Policy Statement where they announced the treasury had downgraded expectations for GDP growth, Singapore Equities are 0.76% higher, Indian Equities up 0.70%, Philippines equities are down 0.12%, while Malaysian equities are down 0.32%