SINGAPORE/SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian stocks rose to a seven-week high on Thursday, boosted by encouraging early results from a COVID-19 treatment trial, though bonds and currencies stuck to cautious ranges ahead of a European Central Bank meeting later in the day.
U.S. and European stock futures gained throughout the session, with EuroSTOXX futures STXEc1 and FTSE futures FFIc1 last up more than 1% and S&P 500 futures ESc1 up about 0.7%.
A 1.4% rise in MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares, excluding Japan, .MIAPJ0000PUS has it tracking toward a weekly gain of more than 5%, its best in three weeks.
Optimism in equity markets was driven by positive partial results from a trial of Gilead’s (GILD.O) antiviral remdesivir, which showed the drug could help speed recovery from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
It was tempered in bond and currency markets, which marked time ahead of an ECB news conference due at 1330 GMT, where there is an increasing expectation it will expand a bond buying programme to better support banks amid a straining credit market.
“Our economists expect the ECB to announce a 500 billion euro expansion to the (bond buying) programme to serve as a backstop against increased fiscal issuance