Overnight

Oil once again was the story overnight Thursday as Asian shares reversed recent gains following news of a surprise increase in U.S. government  oil stockpiles. That coupled with news that Singapore, Asia's leader for trade, cut its economic outlook for the year. Reuters reported.

With Japanese markets closed for a holiday,the Singapore economic outlook centered n  concerns over Brexit and what many see as weakening global demand. The previous forecast called of 1-3% growth and that was lowered to 1-2%  growth going forward.
 Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Indonesia led local gainers. In oil both Brent and WTI suffered sharp overnight losses with WTI off 0.7% at $41.41 and Brent down0.65 at $43.77. Gold gained overnight trading at $1,343.26.

A smaller than expect rate cut by the New Zealand central bank pushed the kiwi higher 1.1% against the U.S. dollar as the New Zealnad currency has gained 6% so far this year against the buck.
New Zealand’s central bank on Thursday cut the official interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a record low of 2.00%, indicating further reductions are likely to push consumer-price inflation higher and tame a strong New Zealand dollar, the WSJ noted. Elsewhere, the Bank of Korea kept its base rate unchanged for a second straight month, as widely expected. The South Korean central bank held the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate steady at a record low 1.25% on Thursday.

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