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* Nikkei at 1-month high, with tech and banks leading
* Australia dollar, sterling climb as risk outlook improves
* Hope, some scepticism ahead of details on US Treasury
plan
By Kevin Plumberg
HONG KONG, March 23 (Reuters) - Asian stocks rose on
Monday, with Japan's Nikkei at a one-month high, and oil prices
climbed toward $53 a barrel on investor hopes a U.S. plan to
rid banks of $1 trillion of toxic assets was closer to being
implemented.
Global equities have been rallying for nearly two weeks on
confidence the financial system was stabilising after some of
the largest U.S. banks said they had solid results in the first
two months of the year, feeding confidence among investors to
buy back riskier assets and slowly let go of safe havens.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was expected to
provide details on the public-private partnership to remove bad
loans from the banking system later on Monday, though investors
were already lifting equities and selling safe havens such as
gold. []
"The expectation is all these packages will have an impact
on the economy, it's just a question of how quickly," said RBS
Australia strategist Greg Goodsell.
The Nikkei share average <> rose 2 percent, with
technology shares providing the biggest boost.
Japan's big bank shares were outperformers, with Mizuho
Financial Group up 3.3 percent. Shares of Mitsubishi UFJ
Financial Group <8306.T>, the country's biggest bank, climbed
2.2 percent after it said it would cut 1,000 jobs.
The MSCI index <.MIAPJ0000PUS> of Asia Pacific stocks
outside Japan was up 1.2 percent, approaching a fresh one-month
high.
Newspaper reports over the weekend provided some details on
the U.S. plan, which included an expansion in the use of the
Federal Reserve's term asset-backed securities loan facility as
well as the establishment of a private investment fund to
handle the risky securities. []
"The reaction to the plans will be crucial in determining
whether markets can continue to maintain the recent improvement
in sentiment and improved risk appetite. We suspect that the
rally will not last and that risk aversion will pick up once
again," said Mitul Kotecha, head of global currency strategy
with Calyon in Hong Kong, in a note to clients.
Currencies that were sold off heavily during the most
violent periods of market volatility performed well. The
Australian dollar rose 0.5 percent to US$0.6930 <AUD=>, inching
up near a two-month high, and sterling strengthened by 0.7
percent to $1.4528 <GBP=>.
The euro hit a five-month high against the yen, above
131.20 yen <EURJPY=>, following remarks by European Central
Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet underscoring that rates were
already at low levels and may turn to unconventional measures
to shore up the banking system.
U.S. crude futures <CLc1> rose over 1 percent towards $53 a
barrel on Monday, bolstered by expectations that the U.S.
Treasury's efforts to stabilise the ailing financial system
would
