Asia gains as Wall St slide halts, kiwi tumbles

By Shinichi Saoshiro

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks rose on Thursday, encouraged by gains on Wall Street, while the New Zealand dollar tumbled to a five-year low after the central bank cut interest rates for the first time in four years as the economy slows.

South Korea's central bank also eased, cutting its rate to a record low 1.50 percent to offset the potential impact of an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6 percent.

Tokyo's Nikkei added 1.5 percent while Australian shares gained 1.2 percent and South Korea's Kospi advanced 0.5 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index bucked the trend and lost 0.3 percent.

Investors also were awaiting China May industrial output, retail sales and investment data due at 0530 GMT for more clues on the health of the world's second-largest economy. Only marginal improvements are expected, fueling expectations of more policy easing by Beijing.

U.S. stocks jumped overnight, helped by gains in technology and financial shares. The Dow rose 1.3 percent and the S&P 500 gained 1.2 percent.

Wall Street had suffered through much of the week, weighed by concerns that the Federal Reserve would hike rates sooner rather than later, and fears that Greece would default on its debt.

In currencies, the New Zealand dollar slid more than 2 percent on the day to a five-year low of $0.7010 after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut rates to 3.25 percent. Most economists had not expected a cut while market players had said it would be a close call.

The kiwi took a further hit as the RBNZ, which had hiked rates just last year, joined the global rate-cutting club and said it would ease again if needed.

"The RBNZ has again proved to be more flexible than the market gives it credit for," said Michael Turner, a strategist at RBC Capital Markets.

"The main message is that it's just very hard to find upside risks to inflation right now and the bank is getting on the front foot to push it higher."

The South Korean won showed a muted reaction to the rate cut there, with the Bank of Korea expected to have eased sooner or later. The easing did nudge South Korea's 10-year bond yield below that of its U.S. counterpart for the first time in nearly 10 years.

The yen stood taller against the dollar after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the Japanese currency is already "very weak."

The greenback traded at 123.14 yen, having pulled sharply away from a 13-year high of 125.86 touched Friday on robust U.S. non-farm payrolls data.

The euro was down 0.3 percent at $1.1287. The common currency has gained 1.7 percent so far this week, helped by an ongoing spike in euro zone debt yields.

German benchmark 10-year Bund yields rose above 1 percent overnight for the first time since September as the market's long-term inflation expectations, a driver of the two-month assault on global bonds, hit three-week highs.

Climbing German yields have in turn pulled up U.S. and Japanese yields. The U.S. 10-year Treasury note yield rose to a nine-month high of around 2.5 percent overnight while the 10-year JGB yield was at a nine-month peak of 0.545 percent.

In commodities, U.S. crude gave up some of its gains from rallying overnight, when a big U.S. stocks drawdown boosted the outlook for summer fuel demand.

U.S. crude was down 0.6 percent at $61.08 after jumping 2 percent on Wednesday. Brent shed 0.3 percent to $65.43 after a 1 percent gain.

(Additional reporting by Naomi Tajitsu and Charlotte Greenfield in Wellington; Editing by Eric Meijer & Kim Coghill)