Asian markets rose in early trading Monday after encouraging economic news from China.
China’s official purchasing managers index, released Sunday, showed that the country’s manufacturing sector rebounded strongly in March, to a six-month high of 50.5, from 49.2 in February. Later, the private Caixin China manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50.8 in March from 49.9 in February, expanding for the first time in four months. The readings helped ease worries that the world’s second-largest economy was significantly slowing down.
The Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, +2.29%
surged 2.3%, and the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite
399106, +3.03%
soared 3% on the news. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index
HSI, +1.65%
rose 1.5%, and Japan’s Nikkei
NIK, +1.54%
was up 1.9%. South Korea’s Kospi
SEU, +1.22%
advanced 1.2% Benchmark indexes in Taiwan
Y9999, -0.07%
and Singapore
STI, +0.81%
rose as well, though stocks in Indonesia
JAKIDX, -0.19%
declined. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO, +0.54%
gained 0.7%.
Among individual stocks, Apple Inc.
AAPL, +0.65%
supplier Japan Display
6740, +11.59%
skyrocketed after announcing it would seek nearly $1 billion in new financing. SoftBank
9984, +1.68%
and Toyota
7203, +2.40%
also advanced. Sunny Optical
2382, +4.75%
and Galaxy Entertainment
0027, +4.77%
rose in Hong Kong, and Samsung
005930, +1.01%
and SK Hynix
000660, +3.23%
gained in Korea. Beach Energy
BPT, +1.46%
and Rio Tinto
RIO, +1.76%
advanced in Australia.
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Source : MTV
