Japan’s Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) halted trading on Thursday due to a technical issue, while many major markets in the region were closed for holidays.
Japan Exchange Group said on Thursday afternoon that the Tokyo Stock Exchange halted trading for the day following a hardware glitch.
“TSE is currently planning to replace the hardware and taking steps, including other maintenance, to ensure normal trading from tomorrow onwards,” the Japan Exchange Group said.
The Japanese government had instructed the exchange to identify the cause of the technical issue, Reuters reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia gained 0.98% to close at 5,872.90. Elsewhere, Singapore’s Straits Times index rose 1.26%, as of about 3:46 p.m. local time. The Nifty 50 in India also advanced more than 1%.
Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was 0.48% higher. Markets in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan were closed on Thursday for holidays.
In corporate developments, shares of Singapore telecommunications firm Singtel jumped about 1.4% in Thursday afternoon trade after the firm announced that its CEO is set to retire on Jan. 1, 2021.
On the economic data front, the headline large manufacturers index in the Bank of Japan’s quarterly tankan business sentiment survey came in at minus 27, against expectations of a minus 23 reading in a Reuters poll. Still, that was better than the minus 34 reading in June.
Bank of America Global Research’s Izumi Devalier said the tankan figures were “not entirely surprising.”
“The good news is that we have confirmed that the bottom of Japan’s economy and the recession and shock from the coronavirus was indeed in the second quarter,” Izumi Devalier, head of Japan economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told CNBC on Thursday. On the flipside, she said sentiment levels remain “very, very low,” particularly among manufacturers.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 93.752 in a week that has seen it decline from levels above 94.2.
The Japanese yen traded at 105.51 per dollar after seeing levels above 105.6 against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7183 following its rise yesterday from levels below $0.715.
Oil prices were lower in the afternoon of Asian trading hours. Brent crude futures were down 0.61% at $42.04 per barrel. U.S. crude futures slipped 0.72% to $39.93 per barrel.
