Asia Pacific markets mostly rose on Tuesday, following gains on Wall Street overnight as investors remain unfazed by China’s retaliatory actions against the United States.
The Nikkei 225 advanced 1.84% and the Topix index was up 2.45% as the Japanese market returned to trading following a public holiday on Monday.
South Korea’s Kospi index gained 1.69% while Australia’s benchmark ASX 200 advanced 0.86% where the heavily-weighted financials subindex rose 1.76%.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 2.4% and the new technology index rose 0.33%.
Chinese mainland shares also rose but trimmed some of their earlier gains: The Shanghai composite was up 0.33%, the Shenzhen component gained 0.26% and the Shenzhen composite added 0.11%.
In economic news, Singapore’s GDP contracted by 42.9% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter. That sent the Southeast Asian country into a technical recession as large parts of the economy were shut down in early April to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Still, Singapore’s Straits Times index was up 0.22%.
“Headline risks dominate amid lingering US fiscal uncertainties and rising US-China tensions,” Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy for Asia and Oceania treasury department at Mizuho Bank, said in a note.
“But markets appear to have a rather low bar in terms of expectations,” he added.
U.S. stock futures pointed to moderate gains when markets open on Tuesday.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of its peers, traded at 93.529, coming off an earlier high around 93.719. The Japanese yen, also a safe-haven currency, changed hands at 106.07 against the dollar, weakening fractionally from levels near 105.30 in the previous week.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar rose 0.46% to $0.7182.
Oil prices gained Tuesday during Asian trading hours. U.S. crude was up 0.81% at $42.28 per barrel while global benchmark Brent added 0.51% to $45.22.
Source: CNBC Markets, Bloomberg, MonSun Asia.
