Shares in Asia-Pacific were higher on Thursday, with markets in Japan closed for a holiday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was among the biggest gainers regionally, rising 1.83% to close at 27,723.84. Shares of China Evergrande Group surged 7.87%.
Those gains came after the indebted developer announced it has solved legal disputes with China Guangfa Bank, according to Reuters.
Elsewhere, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia advanced 1.06% to finish the trading day at 7,386.40. Shares of major miner BHP soared 3.13% after the firm announced Thursday the signing of a nickel supply agreement with Tesla.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.25% while markets in Japan were closed on Thursday for a holiday.
Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin rebounded after recently falling below the $30,000 mark. It traded at $32,095.86 as of 4:05 a.m. ET Thursday, according to Coin Metrics.
Overnight stateside, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 286.01 points to 34,798 while the S&P 500 rose 0.82% to 4,358.69. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.92% to 14,631.95.
Asian Markets Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 92.758 after a recent fall from above 93.
The Japanese yen traded at 110.34 per dollar, weaker than levels below 109.5 seen against the greenback earlier this week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7365, still above levels below $0.732 seen yesterday.
Oil prices fell on Thursday after an unexpected rise in U.S. crude oil inventories and as rising COVID-19 infections threaten demand, but prices held on to most of their gains from the previous session on expectations that supplies will remain tight through year-end.
Brent crude fell 32 cents, or 0.4%, to $71.91 a barrel at 0347 GMT, after rising 4.2% in the previous session. While U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 27 cents, or 0.4%, to $70.03 a barrel, after rising 4.6% on Wednesday
