Asian shares in November post biggest monthly gains in 10 months

Reuters: Asian shares posted their biggest monthly gain in 10 months in November on hopes US-China trade tensions would ease and on expectations of fewer US rate hikes in the coming quarters.

The MSCI Asia-Pacific index gained 2.74% last month, its biggest monthly gain since January.

Share markets in Hong Kong, India and Indonesia led the region with gains of 6.1%, 4.7% and 3.9%, respectively.

Investors were expecting the Trump-Xi meeting in the G20 summit to provide some breakthrough in the trade talks and increased their bets on regional equity markets. In the meeting last week, the two leaders agreed to a 90-day truce on further tariffs in their trade war.

Also, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments that US interest rates were “just below” neutral, bolstered views the central bank would stop raising rates sooner than previously expected.

However, all Asian stock indexes were still negative for the year, at the end of last month.

New Zealand, India, and Malaysian stocks have the highest price-to-earnings ratio based on 12-month forward earnings in Asia, according to Refinitiv data.

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