Asian Shares Mostly Higher on Relief Over ‘Brexit’ Polls

Australian stocks added 0.3 percent and South Korea’s Kospi.KS11 rose 1 percent.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index finished up 0.12% to 2,888.59, while the Shenzhen Composite added 0.44% at 1,909.12. Turnover hit a two-week low of 1.78 trillion yen. It soared 2.3 percent to 153.00 yen and 1.5 percent against the euro to 77.36 pence.

Kao climbed 223 yen, or 3.8 percent, to 6,044 yen after the household products maker said Monday it will purchase US and Spanish ink developers to expand its package printing business.

It jumped more than 2pc to 152.65 yen, pulling well away from a three-year trough around 145.34 set on Thursday.

In India, Rajan’s leaving weighed on the rupee-analysts credit the central bank governor with stabilizing the currency against the dollar, as well as bringing down inflation and taking steps to tackle the bad-loan mess in the Indian banking system.

“Those who were risk averse are reversing their positions”, said Yoshinori Shigemi, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management in Tokyo.

Mixed trading across asset classes pointed to uneasiness in markets, investors said, and came after Monday’s dramatic surge in “risk assets”, driven by polls showing the chance of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union appearing to lessen.

Share prices, which fell globally in recent days on the prospect of Britain quitting the bloc as some polls showed the “Leave” campaign ahead, rose strongly.

Prime Minister David Cameron warned Sunday of damage to Britain´s economy if it quits the European Union, as rival camps competed to sway voters in a campaign shaken by the shock murder of lawmaker Jo Cox.

“It might be possible that the events influenced the polls but most experts commented that it is more likely that an expected and well documented “pull to the status-quo” is responsible for the latest swing”, RBC’s chief European macro strategist Peter Schaffrik said.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose 2.21 percent, or 344.10 points, to 15,943.76 by the lunch break while the broader Topix index of all first-section shares gained 2.24 percent, or 28.03 points, to 1,278.86.

The yen, often sought by investors in times of market tension, fell 0.4 percent to 104.54 per dollar.

Benchmark 10-year US and German yields were flat at 1.69 percent and 0.05 percent, respectively.

The dollar index.DXY touched an 11-day low of 93.449 as the greenback gave back ground against most of its major peers, apart from the yen.

Bookmakers’ odds have also shown “Remain” gaining traction, with Betfair putting the implied probability of such an outcome at 72 percent on Monday, up from 60-67 percent on Friday.

Sterling rose around 0.5 percent against the dollar, climbing above $1.47 and edging back towards Tuesday’s $1.4781.

Gold, another “safe haven” where investors park their money at times of heightened risk, fell 2 percent to $1,264.88 an ounce, with traders citing the reduction in the risk that the United Kingdom will leaver the EU.