SEOUL, South Korea – Asian stock markets were mostly higher Friday, after an overnight recovery of technology stocks on Wall Street. An agreement among key crude exporting countries to extend oil production cuts also boosted sentiment. But Chinese stocks lost ground after weak factory data.
Continue Reading Below
KEEPING SCORE: Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.4 percent to 22,819.03 while South Korea’s Kospi fell less than 0.1 percent to 2,475.41. But Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped 0.4 percent to 29,071.21 and China’s Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.1 percent at 3,315.01. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3 percent to 5,989.80. Stocks in Southeast Asia were mostly higher.
ANALYST’S TAKE: “The recovery in technology stocks looks set to ignite a rebound for Asian equities into the end of the week,” said Jingyi Pan, a market strategist at IG in Singapore.
TECH STOCKS: Investors picked up Asian tech stocks a day after their pull back. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, rose 2.2 percent. SK Hynix rose 0.8 percent while Samsung Electronics gained 0.1 percent. LG Electronics jumped 3.9 percent.
CHINA DATA: In China, the latest Caixin purchasing managers’ index showed that factory activity fell to its lowest level in five months in November while confidence about the business outlook also dropped. The indicator that shows a snapshot of operating conditions in China’s manufacturing economy registered 50.8 last month, down from 51.0 in October.
WALL STREET: On Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average finished with its biggest gain since March and pushed it past the 24,000 mark for the first time. The Dow jumped 1.4 percent to 24,272.35. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index climbed 0.8 percent to 2,647.58 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.7 percent to 6,873.97. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked 0.1 percent to 1,544.14.
Continue Reading Below
ADVERTISEMENT
OIL: Crude oil prices gained after OPEC and a group of allied oil-producing nations agreed to extend crude output cuts until the end of next year. Benchmark U.S. crude added 17 cents to $57.57 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract finished at $57.40 per barrel on Thursday, up 10 cents. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 25 cents to $62.88 per barrel in London. It finished at $62.63 a barrel, up 10 cents in the previous day.
CURRENCIES: The dollar edged higher to 112.61 yen from 112.54 yen while the euro rose slightly to $1.1920 from $1.1904.
