Asia Monday View
Amid signs of strength in the U.S. economy, copper and crude-oil futures jumped in regular trading on Friday and commodity-linked stocks were broadly higher today in Asia. Gold continued to decline. The USD surged on Friday with the release of the economic data but peaked and then began to drop losing steam quickly
Asian shares climbed on today, with commodity producers, exporters and financials higher after indications that the U.S. economy is improving.
Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average was up 1%, South Korea’s Kospi marched 0.4%, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index shot up 1.1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index moved upward 0.6% while the Shanghai Composite pushed up 0.2%.
U.S. stocks ended Friday’s session with sharp gains after the release of data showing the U.S. economy added more jobs than expected in January and the jobless rate fell to a three-year low of 8.3%
The better-than-expected U.S. January jobs report released at the end of last week helped to buoy risk appetite as securities continued to rise. However, there is plenty of event risk on the docket this week, not least of which is the Greek debt and bailout negotiations, which have yet to be agreed upon.
Falling unemployment in the U.S. is likely to be good news for Asia, as it suggests stronger consumer demand for the region’s exports of clothing, cars, consumer electronics and other goods.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei hit 8,949.32– its highest intraday level since Oct. 31 — before settling slightly lowers. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was also off its daily high, as investors began to cash in some of their investments as talks to prevent Greece from defaulting on its massive debt pile dragged on.
Hitting 21,000 and now falling as there is profit-taking, because there is still potential bad news from Greece. The Greek debt talks are still going on, and no one knows if significant bad news will come out of there.
The Dow Jones rose 1.2 percent to close at 12,862.23, its highest mark since May 19, 2008, about four months before Lehman Brothers investment bank collapsed.
The S&P added 1.3 percent to 1,344.90, its highest close since last summer. The Nasdaq Composite added 1.6 percent, to 2,905.66, its highest since in 11 years.
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