HONG KONG, Sept 23 Reuters -- Asian shares moved higher on Thursday, supported by some positive news from struggling developer China Evergrande Group, while the dollar held nearly one-month top after the U.S. Federal Reserve took a hawkish tilt overnight.
However, investors had to remain conditioned about Evergrande's future with a major test to come later on Thursday when $83.5m in dollar-bond interest payments are due.
There is still a long way to go before this is resolved, said JP Morgan Asset Management global market strategist Kerry Craig. You'll see some of the immediate fears of a massive collapse and contagion start to melt down, but it will still be an issue that pops up because the property market and construction is such a massive part of the Chinese economy. Evergrande's shares surged 23% on Thursday after a unit said on Wednesday, when the Hong Kong market was closed for holidays, that it had resolved a coupon payment on an onshore bond.
The Hong Kong benchmark rose 1.6%, boosting MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares (outside Japan) at 0.64%.
Elsewhere, Chinese blue chips gain 0.74%, Korea's benchmark rose 1.04% and Australia's Kospi fell 0.6% after returning from a three-day break to catch up with global plunges earlier in the week.
The monthly U.S. stock market, the S&P 500 e-minis, was up 0.31%.
Fears that Evergrande could fail to meet its obligations jolted global markets earlier this week as traders worried the giant developer's issues could spill over to other property firms and banks. Concerns eased somewhat on Wednesday when the People's Bank of China injected 90 billion dollars into the banking system.
Investors were also focused on the U.S. Federal Reserve, which said overnight it would likely begin reducing its monthly bond purchases as soon as November and signalled interest rate increases may follow more quickly than expected.
The most interesting part of what we learnt from the Fed was that market was very accepting of it, Craig said.
The three major U.S. stock indexes collapsed 1%, not far off where they were before the Fed announcement, and U.S. Treasury yields sawayed, before largely taking the change in their stride.
The dollar rose after the Fed Chairman's remarks hitting a month-high of 93.526 against a basket of currencies especially gaining against Euro and yen but paused for breath in Asian hours.
U.S. crude also dropped 0.11% to $72.15 a barrel. Brent crude dropped 0.35% $76.13 to barrel.
Spot gold lost 0.24% to trade at $1763.43 per ounce with $11.63 lost per ounce.