On Thursday Asian shares gained with Tokyo jumping on a weaker yen as central banks around the region move to easy or neutral policies.
The Nikkei 225 gained 1.30 % and the Shanghai composite shot up 1.35% as the Bank of Thailand cut rates on Wednesday.
The Bank of Korea cut to 1.75% on Thursday, 25 basis points, which followed the Bank of Thailand a day earlier to 2% from 2.25%.
Elsewhere, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.95% as Australia's unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, matching expectations, while 15,600 jobs were added, just above the 15,000 expected, while the participation rate dipped to 64.6% from 64.8%.
In Australia, MI inflation expectations in March fell to an annualized 3.2% from 4.0% in February.
The central bank of New Zealand maintained the official cash rate at 3.5% on Thursday even as it cut 90-day bill forecasts and said the monetary policy view is neutral.
"Our central projection is consistent with a period of stability in the OCR. However, future interest-rate adjustments, either up or down, will depend on the emerging flow of economic data," RBNZ said.
U.S. stocks were lower overnight after the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Consumer Goods, Utilities and Technology sectors led shares lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.16% to hit a new 1-month low, while the S&P 500 index declined 0.19%, and the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0.20%.
Market players expect that the Federal Reserve is expected to begin raising interest rates around the middle of this year and investors were looking ahead to next week’s policy statement to see if it would drop its reference to being patient before raising rates.
The euro came under broad selling pressure overnight after the European Central Bank began purchasing securities on Monday as part of an asset-buying program amounting to €60 billion a month.
