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SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's central bank kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday but signalled it was ready to start easing policy as price pressures and growth eased, raising expectations for a rate cut at its October meeting. The Bank of Korea held the benchmark interest rate at 3.50%, a decision expected by 38 out of 40 economists surveyed by Reuters. However, the BOK said in its policy statement it now needed to "examine the proper timing of rate cuts while maintaining a restrictive monetary policy stance."

Asian shares inched higher while the dollar was pinned to one-year lows on sterling and the euro on Thursday as Federal Reserve minutes showed policymakers were ready to start cutting U.S. interest rates. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.2% in early trade and Japan's Nikkei rose 1%. "The unequivocal signal from the (Fed) minutes has been the catalyst for the latest leg down in the U.S. dollar," said National Australia Bank's head of currency strategy, Ray Attrill.

(Bloomberg) -- Oil steadied near the lowest close since January as concerns about a US slowdown outweighed the lift from falling inventories.Most Read from BloombergThe Serious Work That Free Play Can DoBrent traded below $76 a barrel after a four-day slump, with selling pressure in that run exacerbated by trend-following algorithmic traders. West Texas Intermediate was near $72. US job growth was probably far less robust in the year through March than previously reported, adding to a string of

A Greek-flagged oil tanker traveling through the Red Sea came under repeated attack Wednesday, leaving the vessel “not under command” and drifting ablaze after an assault suspected to have been carried out by Yemen's Houthi rebels, the British military said. The attack, the most serious in the Red Sea in weeks, comes during a monthslong campaign by Houthis targeting ships over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that has disrupted a trade route through which $1 trillion in cargo typically passes each year. In the attack, men on small boats first opened fire with small arms about 140 kilometers (90 miles) west of the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hodeida, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

The dollar traded near the lowest in more than a year against the euro and sterling on Thursday as a dovish Federal Reserve and fresh signs of weakness in the U.S. job market backed the case for interest rate cuts. The dollar sagged below the closely watched 145 yen mark as U.S. Treasury yields slid, ahead of weekly jobless claims data later in the day and a hotly anticipated speech by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the central bank's annual Jackson Hole symposium on Friday. Fed officials last month were strongly leaning toward an interest rate cut at their September policy meeting and several of them would have even been willing to reduce borrowing costs immediately, according to the minutes of the July 30-31 gathering released on Wednesday.

A sharp sell-off in crude oil paused on Thursday after expectations of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve offset a bunch of weak economic data from the world's two largest economies, the United States and China. Brent crude futures were 3 cents up to $76.08 a barrel. WTI touched its lowest since early February on Wednesday after revised U.S. employment statistics showed fewer jobs than previously reported and weak economic data from China, the world's second-largest economy.

Analysts say countries like Malaysia and Thailand may want to hedge in a more polarized world and get better access to China and India.