Asia markets rise on hopes for central bank action

HONG KONG: Asian markets mostly rose Tuesday on hopes that central banks in the United States and Europe would take action to boost their sluggish economies after a stream of negative data.

Regional bourses shrugged off a lacklustre performance on Wall Street, as investors hoped the US Federal Reserve would take stimulus measures after weak manufacturing data, and that the ECB would cut rates at a meeting Thursday.

Tokyo was up 0.76 percent, Hong Kong put on 1.49 percent, and Seoul was up around 1.0 percent.

Shanghai, which has fallen recently on fears about slowing Chinese economic growth, was up 0.56 percent, but Sydney was off 0.06 percent.

The euro was weak in Asian trade however, as a rally late last week on a surprise eurozone deal fizzled out and investors looked cautiously ahead to the European Central Bank meeting.

On Monday in the US, data from the Institute for Supply Management showed manufacturing contracted for the first time in almost three years in June, with its index falling to 49.7 percent, from May's 53.5 percent.

But American stocks finished mixed as hopes rose that the latest weak economic report from the world's biggest economy might spur the Fed into a third round of asset purchases, known as quantitative easing.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 8.70 points, or 0.07 percent, to finish at 12,871.39.

The S&P 500 index advanced 3.35, or 0.25 percent, to 1,365.51, while the tech-rich Nasdaq outperformed, gaining 16.18 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,951.23.

Investors are also looking ahead to Friday, when the US government releases its highly anticipated June job growth and unemployment numbers.

In Europe, poor eurozone data suggested to many investors that the ECB would cut its main interest rate on Thursday from the current record low of 1.0 percent.