Thursday Morning Briefing: Asian Stocks Pare Early Gains As Traders Hold Bets

Most Asian stocks pared their early gains as traders held bets awaiting key events. Japanese stocks gained led by banks and exporters as the yen weakened, while Chinese shares declined.

Oil recovered just a small portion of the more than 5 percent plunge triggered by data showing rise in U.S. crude stockpiles. Traders seem reluctant to add big positions before Chinese trade data, the European Central Bank's policy decision and the U.K. general elections.

Meanwhile, Former FBI director James Comey released a prepared testimony saying the president asked him to end an investigation into the former national security adviser.

Back home, the Indian central bank's monetary policy committee left the lending rate unchanged at 6.25 percent citing several medium-term risks. However, it slashed its inflation projection for the current year, opening up room for a rate cut in the coming months.

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Crude Surprise

West Texas Intermediate Crude traded 0.4 percent higher, below the $46 per barrel mark after it dropped 5 percent on rising U.S. stockpiles. U.S. inventories rose by 3.3 million barrels last week - the most since mid-March, according to the Energy Information Administration.

This surprised all eight analysts tracked by Bloomberg who has predicted a decline. On the other side, crude production dropped the most since January. “The market is very sensitive to inventory levels at the moment. It's a period where investors expect to see seasonal declines," said Ric Spooner, an analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, to Bloomberg.

Slow Start?

The Singapore traded SGX Nifty, an early indicator Nifty 50 Index performance in India, slid 0.15 percent to 9,681.

While Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that he respected the central bank's decision and autonomy, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian criticised the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for “overstating inflation” and making “large forecast errors”

Reliance Capital Ltd. will be in focus after it announced plans to list Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management (RNAM) on the exchanges. The IPO will offer 10 percent of its equity initially, and later dilute another 25 percent, according to a filing.

RNAM is one of the largest asset manager in India managing assets of Rs 3,58,059 crore.