It was nice start for Asian stocks on Monday, led by Japan, following end-of-week gains in the U.S. after another solid jobs report.
The Nikkei
NIK, +1.36%
was up an early 1.2%, helped by declines in the yen; the greenback
USDJPY, +0.08%
was last around ¥109.70 versus ¥109.08 when Friday’s local stock trading wrapped. Big exporters Toyota
7203, +3.78%
and Sony
6758, +2.83%
were about 3% higher. Oil names opened lower, with crude distributor JXTG
5020, +0.11%
down 0.8% after jumping a combined 4.7% Thursday and Friday while and producer Inpex
1605, -1.50%
shedded 2.1% to erase the gains seen during a three-day rebound through Friday. Brent oil
LCOQ8, -0.30%
retreated 1% Friday and was off a further 0.3% Monday morning
Meanwhile, indexes in South Korea
SEU, +0.20%
and Australia
XJO, +0.56%
started with 0.4% advances, with the latter’s benchmark having fallen for three straight weeks. New Zealand’s markets are closed for a holiday.
Singapore stocks also opened solidly higher amid broad optimism in the region after Friday’s post-jobs gains in the U.S. After three straight declines, the Straits Times Index
STI, +0.88%
was up 0.7% with banks and property stocks early outperformers, rising more than 1%.
Malaysian stocks
FBMKLCI, -0.15%
opened lower, contrasting early gains elsewhere in Asia, as the market paused following two days of roughly 1% gains.
Source : MTV
