Asian stocks wobbled toward the end of a sparkling quarter on Tuesday, while a resurgent dollar pushed the yen to a four-decade low and was headed for a fourth straight quarterly rise.Japan's Nikkei, which was steady in early trade, is set for a record rise of more than 36 percent for the quarter. South Korea's chipmaker-driven KOSPI slipped 1 percent, though it was set for an eye-popping second-quarter rise of nearly 65 percent having more than doubled year-to-date.
The oil market's worries about war have receded into memory with benchmark Brent crude futures at pre-war prices of $72.49 a barrel, even though the interim ceasefire is strained.
"Now that we have oil prices down, it's reinforcing our view of more trend-like growth around the world relative to sub-trend that we were thinking about a couple of months ago, and feeding into the better earnings story as well," said Kerry Craig, strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management in Melbourne.
Wall Street indexes rose overnight and futures were flat in the Asia morning. The dollar eyed a quarterly rise thanks to a remarkable re-pricing of the US interest rate outlook which has flipped from cuts to hikes on US economic strength and inflationary pressures.
