HONG KONG – Asian shares made cautious gains on Thursday while the dollar held near a one-month top after the US Federal Reserve took a hawkish tilt overnight.
As Hong Kong markets came off a holiday, Chinese mainland developer China Evergrande Group's shares surged 30 percent to mark their best day ever as its chairman sought to reassure investors and as the company's unit said on Wednesday it had "resolved" a coupon payment on an onshore bond.
Its stock pared gains to trade up 13 percent, lifting the Hong Kong benchmark by 0.7 percent, while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.5 percent.
Elsewhere, Chinese mainland blue chips gained 0.7 percent, Australia's benchmark rose 1 percent, and South Korea's Kospi fell 0.6 percent after returning from a three-day break to catch up with global falls earlier in the week. Japan equity markets were shut for a holiday.
US stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis, were up 0.3 percent.
In another key event for markets, the US Federal Reserve 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 striking part of what we learnt from the Fed was that the market was very accepting of it," Craig of JP Morgan Asset said.
The three major US stock indexes closed up 1 percent, not far off where they were before the Fed announcement, and US Treasury yields were little changed at 1.3023 percent after see-sawing overnight.
The dollar rose after the Fed Chair's remarks to hit a month-high of 93.526 against a basket of currencies, particularly gaining against the euro and yen, but paused for breath in Asian hours.
US crude rose 0.1 percent to US$72.33 a barrel, while Brent crude gained 0.2 percent to US$76.23 per barrel.
Spot gold lost 0.3 percent to trade at US$1,763.32 per ounce.