SINGAPORE- Industrial metals prices extended their gains on Tuesday with expectations of a worldwide manufacturing rebound, while Asian shares crept up a little more cautiously ahead of this week’s US inflation data and a crucial European Central Bank meeting.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6 percent . Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.8 percent . S&P 500 futures and FTSE futures were flat while European futures were down 0.18 percent .
In Shanghai, the most-traded May copper futures rose more than 1 percent to a record high, while zinc and tin made multi-month peaks and aluminum traded just below Monday’s two-year top.
Even iron ore battered by China’s property downturn, steadied above $100 a ton in Singapore.
“It’s pretty much a China bet,” said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.
“It’s coincided with a global manufacturing bottoming, and I think that plays well into China’s industrial recovery. That aspect of it is a broader-based story for metals.”
On Monday, data showed German industrial production rising more than expected in February.
Last week, data showed US manufacturing growing for the first time in one-and-a-half years. China’s manufacturing activity expanded for the first time in six months in March.
Among Asian bourses, Taiwan stocks touched a record high, led by a more than 4 percent jump in shares of TSMC after the world’s largest contract chipmaker won a $6.6 billion subsidy for an Arizona production plant.
Chinese stocks were more circumspect, with mainland indexes marginally lower and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up 0.7 percent , though proxies outside China from European stock markets to the Antipodean currencies have been standout gainers.
The Australian dollar is up almost 2 percent in a week and traded at $0.6605 on Tuesday.
The New Zealand dollar hit a two-week high of $0.6047 in morning trade.
China’s yuan down about 1.8 percent this year, has found a floor around 7.3 to the dollar.
Since the beginning of March, the EuroSTOXX index has risen 2.3 percent and Germany’s DAX is up 3.2 percent . The Nasdaq has been flat and the Nikkei has lost 1 percent.
