Markets in most of Asia rallied in pre-market trading on Thursday, unfazed by external pressures after the Chinese central bank let its currency wobble again at its most sluggish condition since 2008.
The People's Bank of China adjusted the yuan's basis point at 7.0039 versus the US currency. However, the move was not considered by some finance experts as weak as they have estimated, to the delight of investors that China is attempting to instigate an all-out currency conflict.
The Chinese currency's dive below the crucial 7-mark triggered a widespread market sell-off late Monday and sent global stock markets spiraling in the midst of worries it was the first warning shot in a major currency crisis, which prompted the US President Donald Trump to call China a "currency manipulator."
China's commerce ministry reported better-than-projected market figures despite its ongoing trade rift with Washington, showing July exports rising 3.4% year-on-year while imports were down 5.7%, with a total trade excess of $45.07 billion, late Thursday.
Currency observers had been estimating exports to decline 3% from last year, and overall imports to dip 7.4%, with an excess figure of $38.8 billion, based on a report by Wall Street Journal.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei rallied 0.7% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was up 0.5%. The Shanghai Composite rose 0.8% while the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite Index climbed 0.7%.
The South Korean Kospi improved 0.88% as the Singaporean Straits Times Index fell, but benchmark share indexes in Indonesia and Taiwan moved up slightly. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3%.
Among individual stocks, Fast Retailing and Nikon advanced in Hong Kong trading, while SoftBank and Inpex plunged. Tencent and Sunny Optical bounced back, and Hyundai Motor moved up in Seoul. and Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor gained in Taiwan, while Rio Tinto and Oil Search also rallied in Australia.
With strains between the world's two biggest economies showing few signs of waning, the global currency market is seen to continue being sensitive to any reactions and countermeasures by Washington and Beijing for the time being, investors said.
Meanwhile in Japan, whose currency has been largely perceived as a safe-haven cushion in the last 10 years, would find itself caught up in the crossfire between China and US, amid deepening anxiety about a looming global recession.
