** China's blue-chip CSI 300 Index were up 0.32%, while the Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.25%.
** Hang Seng Index jumped 1.92%, while Hang Seng China Enterprises Index gained 1.68%.
** U.S. banks were higher after Treasury Secretary Janet
Yellen said on Tuesday that she is prepared to intervene to
protect depositors in smaller U.S. banks suffering deposit runs.
** Ahead of the Fed interest rate decision, risk-on
sentiment was charged up. Michael Dyer, investment director of
M&G Investment said this time round clearly the Fed is closer to
the end of their hiking cycle than the beginning.
** "We witnessed a material shift in both expected terminal
value of Fed policy and the potential for cuts in the latter
part of the year," he said, but stressing that "it would be
naïve to assume that inflation is no longer a serious headache
for the Fed.
** High uncertainty over the interest rate outlook remains -
Hong Kong overnight interbank offer dropped the most
in over three years on Wednesday, down 174.5 basis point (bps)
to 2.39786% and retracing from a near four-month high of
4.14286% seen on Tuesday. One-month interbank rate also fell 13 bps to 3.36887%.
** "The easing concerns of AT1 bonds sell-off and the
pricing-in of Fed's potential dovish tone have helped the market
sentiment," said Dickie Wong, director of research at Kingston
Securities.
** Hong Kong bank stocks rebounded. HSBC jumped
3.5%, Standard Chartered surged 4.8%.
** Hong Kong-listed tech giants climbed 1.5%. Alibaba Group < 9988.HK> jumped 3.6%.
** In China A-shares, 5G communication stocks advanced 2.7% to lead the gains.
(Reporting by Summer Zhen; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
