Sydney, April 18, 2018 (Reuters) - Asian shares crept ahead on Wednesday after Wall Street took heart from upbeat corporate earnings, though nagging concerns about trade barriers and the global growth outlook kept currencies and bonds subdued. Chinese markets struggled even as Beijing boosted liquidity in the banking system. Shanghai blue chips hit an eight-month low before recouping losses. Late Tuesday, the PBOC unexpectedly announced it would cut the cash banks must hold as reserves in a move that frees up lending for small firms but falls short of a broad monetary easing. Mainland Chinese shares buckled after the United States banned American companies from selling components to Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan bounced 0.5 percent, though that followed four straight sessions of losses. Japan's Nikkei climbed 1.2 percent, with investors waiting for any developments on trade as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meets President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. European shares are seen rising, with spread-betters expecting 0.2-0.3 percent gains in Britain's FTSE, France's Cac and Germany's Dax. E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 gained 0.1 per cent after robust earnings from Netflix, Goldman Sachs and healthcare companies fuelled optimism about what is expected to be the strongest earnings season in seven years. Profits at the 48 S&P500 companies that have announced earnings so far have risen 28.7 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, said Mutsumi Kagawa, chief global strategist at Rakuten Securities in Tokyo. The Dow ended Tuesday up 0.88 per cent, while the S&P 500 rose 1.06 per cent and the Nasdaq 1.78 per cent. "The three main US indexes turned positive on the year, which seems to suggest to me that markets are entering risk-on mode from risk-off," Kagawa said. Yet there were signs of caution in the latest BofA Merrill Lynch survey of fund mangers which found investors squirreling more funds away into cash, while cutting their equity allocation to an 18-month low.
