Asian markets extend rally as eyes turn to Fed meeting

March 18, 2019: Asian markets rose Monday as investors tracked a positive lead from Wall Street on optimism over the China-US trade talks, while attention turns to the Federal Reserve's next policy meeting this week.

The pound held gains as Prime Minister Theresa May tries to push her EU divorce deal through parliament for a third time, failure of which could see Britain extend its exit deadline or possibly crash out of the bloc.

The broad-based gains built on last week's advance as top officials from the world's biggest economies work on an agreement to end their long-running tariffs spat, which was a major drag on markets at the end of 2018.

While there are few details on the talks as they stand -- and a floated summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping looks to be later than expected -- upbeat comments from both sides are keeping investors broadly happy for now.

"The signing of a trade deal between the US and China would eliminate one major headwind for global markets and is currently the more probable outcome according to most analysts," said James Hughes, chief market analyst at AxiTrader.

"There is more of an incentive for both superpowers to make a deal because it is economically in their best interests. This is especially the case given the growing US trade deficit due to falling exports to China."

In early trade Hong Kong gained 0.6 percent and Shanghai was up 1.2 percent, while Tokyo went into the break 0.6 percent higher. Sydney edged up 0.2 percent and Singapore was 0.3 percent up while Seoul, Wellington, Taipei and Jakarta were also stronger.

(APP)