Asian Energy Stocks Rally With Crude Oil as Dollar Holds Advance 

• Japan’s Topix index caps longest rally since August 2015
• Dollar index at January high as Trump spurs rate-hike bets

Oil jumped on optimism OPEC will agree to a supply-cut deal, buoying Asian energy stocks. The dollar built on last week’s surge, with traders all but convinced the Federal Reserve will pull the trigger on a rate hike in December.

Crude futures climbed as much as 1.4 percent in New York, adding to a 5.3 percent advance last week. With an OPEC meeting next week in Vienna, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said it’s “highly probable” members will reach a consensus, according to comments published by the country’s Shana news service. Santos Ltd. rose 2.8 percent in Sydney as most benchmark Asian equity indexes gained, with Japan’s Topix index rallying for an eighth day. The yen weakened past 111 per dollar as a gauge of the greenback rose to its strongest point since January.

While the prospect of Donald Trump as U.S. president unnerved markets in the lead up to the election, his vow to boost infrastructure spending has turbo-charged bets on a Fed hike, underpinning the dollar’s steepest two-week rally versus the yen since 1988. Fed Chair Janet Yellen told lawmakers that the central bank is close to boosting borrowing costs, with speculation the president-elect will bolster fiscal stimulus already fueling bets on further policy tightening in 2017. In Europe, Angela Merkel said she’ll run as German chancellor again, news that may calm markets after an exceptional few weeks.

“We have little doubt that the world is shifting into a new paradigm where politics and fiscal policy will gain far more prominence,” Philip Borkin, a senior economist in Auckland at ANZ Bank New Zealand Ltd., said in an e-mail. “Markets are indeed behaving that way already as the ‘Trump trade’ of higher yields and the dollar remains the centerpiece of market moves.”

New Zealand issued data on credit-card spending Monday, and Thailand updated on third-quarter gross domestic product. Taiwan also reports on its current account.

Stocks

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.1 percent as of 3:03 p.m. in Tokyo, with a gauge of Chinese shares traded in Hong Kong climbing 1 percent to head for one of the steepest regional gains.

In Japan, the Topix rose 1 percent to post its longest run of daily advances since August last year. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbed more than 20 percent from this year’s low to enter a bull market last week, and Citigroup Inc., AllianceBernstein and Bordier & Cie all see further gains for Japanese shares.

S&P 500 Index futures added 0.2 percent to 2,184.25. U.S. equities extended the rally sparked by Trump’s election win last week, with small-cap shares the biggest beneficiaries.

Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude rose for a second day, adding 1.2 percent to $46.25 a barrel after climbing 0.6 percent on Friday. Brent gained 1.3 percent to $47.45 per barrel.

Oil has rebounded since hitting the lowest in almost two months last week as members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries began making renewed diplomatic efforts before their meeting Nov. 30 to finalize the output deal informally agreed to in September. The group is seeking to trim output for the first time in eight years, a plan that’s been complicated by Iran’s commitment to boost production and Iraq’s request for an exemption to help fund its war with Islamic militants.

Gold rose 0.4 percent and industrial metals jumped, led by nickel’s 3.2 percent surge. Base metals fell the most since August last week as the outlook for higher U.S. interest rates boosted the dollar, curbing demand.

Currencies

The yen weakened 0.2 percent to 111.15 per dollar following last week’s 4 percent slide, the biggest since July. Strategists are raising forecasts for dollar gains against the yen at the fastest pace in more than a year after a Bank of Japan fixed-rate bond-buying operation — that attracted no offers — pulled 10-year Japanese government debt yields back toward zero.

“The trend for yen weakness will continue amid a very violent and volatile market next year,” said Shusuke Yamada, the chief Japan foreign-exchange and equity strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Tokyo. “Even without any additional expansion of stimulus by the BOJ, the power of policy easing will strengthen automatically.”

Traders see a 98 percent likelihood of the Fed raising interest rates at next month’s meeting, fed funds futures show.

The South African rand led the retreat among major currencies versus the dollar, slipping 0.3 percent, while the Australian dollar lost 0.2 percent. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index added 0.1 percent, touching the highest level since January.

Bonds

The debt market took a breather, with 10-year Treasury yields slipping two basis points to 2.33 percent following last week’s 21 basis-point surge.

After being largely left behind in the era of cheap money, savers may ultimately emerge as the big winners in a world where Trump is president. Yields on 30-year Treasury bonds have risen about a half-percentage point since the election as Trump’s ambitious spending plans prompt traders to ratchet up their expectations for inflation and growth.

Source: Bloomberg

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