After slumping at the end of last week, Asian stock markets were higher in early trading Monday, following wide gains in the Americas and Europe on Friday after the U.S. jobs report. Investors seemed to brush off threats from China on Friday to impose retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods.
Japan’s Nikkei
NIK, +0.45%
was up 0.4% despite declines by major banks, with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group
8316, -1.16%
down 1.1% and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
8306, -1.40%
slipping 1.4%. Manufacturers gained though, with Honda Motor
7267, +1.09%
up 1% and robot-maker Fanuc
6954, +1.51%
up 1.5%
Hong Kong stocks rebounded strongly to start the week, after leading the region after fresh selling last week on U.S.-China trade worries. The Hang Seng Index
HSI, +0.85%
was up 1.1%. Tencent
0700, +1.32%
rebounded 1.6%, putting it barely into positive territory for August, while fellow heavyweight HSBC
0005, +1.45%
recovered 1.3% ahead of its second-quarter earnings report. And after skidding 15% on Thursday and 16% on Friday, biotech Ascletis
1672, +3.59%
started its fourth public trading day with a 2.4% gain.
Chinese stocks saw volatile early action as trade worries continued to weigh. The Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, -0.77%
was about flat after spending a bit of time in negative territory, helped by a near-1% rebound in financial stocks. Smaller-cap stocks in Shenzhen
399106, -1.58%
fell more than 1% initially, and the index was last down 0.5%. Health-care stocks remained weak, with drug-related names still feeling pressure from the country’s vaccine scandal. But BGI Genomics
300676, +3.77%
bounced 4.8% after property veteran Wang Shi was appointed co-chairman.
South Korea’s Kospi
SEU, +0.41%
was on track for its sixth gain in the past eight sessions, with heavyweight Samsung Electronics
005930, +0.55%
climbing 0.8%. Taiwan’s Taiex
Y9999, +0.09%
rose 0.2%, although Taiwan Semiconductor
2330, -0.61%
fell 0.4% after it had it to shut a number of chip factories over the weekend due to a computer virus. Benchmarks in Singapore
STI, +0.83%
and Malaysia
FBMKLCI, -0.03%
gained as well.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO, +0.57%
was 0.6% higher, with the materials sector rebounding nearly 1% following last week’s softness. New Zealand’s NZX 50
NZ50GR, +0.54%
was up 0.15%.
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Source : MTV
