Asia shares bounce as stimulus hopes stem rout, for now

Asian shares bounced and bond yields rose from historic lows on Tuesday as speculation of coordinated stimulus from global central banks and governments calmed panic selling.

Yields on benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury debt more than doubled to 0.70% and oil prices rallied over 7%, offering hope that markets had found a floor, even just fleetingly.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan jumped nearly 1%, having shed more than 5% on Monday. Australia rose 0.9% as some went hunting for bargains in beaten down stocks. Japan's Nikkei eased 0.3%, but was well above early lows.

Wall Street had been on the brink of a bear market with all the major indices down almost 20% from their all-time peak, which amazingly were touched just 13 sessions ago.

The Dow fell an eye-watering 7.79%, while the S&P 500 lost 7.60% and the Nasdaq 7.29%.

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Monday sharply stepped up the size of its fund injections into markets to head off stress.

Having delivered an emergency rate cut only last week, investors are fully pricing an easing of at least 75 basis points at the next Fed meeting on March 18, while a cut to near zero was now seen as likely by April.

Britain's finance minister is due to deliver his annual budget on Wednesday and there is much talk of coordinated stimulus with the Bank of England.

The European Central Bank meets on Thursday and will be under intense pressure to act, even though rates there are already deeply negative.

Bonds had charged ahead of the central banks to essentially price in a global recession of unknown length.

Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries reached as low as 0.318% on Monday - a level unthinkable just a week ago - but rose back to be last at 0.6662% on Tuesday amid the stimulus chatter.

That in turn helped the dollar recoup some of its recent hefty losses to reach 103.82 yen, edging away from Monday's three-year trough around 101.17.

The euro eased back to $1.1392, after climbing 1.4% on Monday to the highest in over 13 months at $1.1492.

Gold was restrained to $1,667.62 per ounce amid talk some investors were having to sell to raise cash to cover margin calls in stocks and other assets.