Asian Shares Lifted by Record Wall Street Close
December 08 2016 - 12:00AM
Dow Jones News
Asian equity markets were firmly higher on Thursday, propelled
by another record close on Wall Street and expectations that the
European Central Bank will extend its monetary-stimulus
measures.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.3%, while the Nikkei Stock
Average gained 0.8% and Korea's Kospi added 1%. Hong Kong's Hang
Seng Index was up 0.6%, after briefly reclaiming the 23,000-point
mark, and the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.1%.
Asia's stock gains came as major U.S. indexes logged their
biggest one-day rally since the November elections, with a 1.6%
gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 1.3% rise in S&P
500 sending both to fresh closing highs.
While there was no specific trigger for the U.S. rally, market
participants speculated that large orders in stock futures placed
by computer programs may have accelerated buying.
"Despite a lack of triggering data, animal spirits were evident
in overnight trading," said Michael McCarthy, chief market
strategist at CMC Markets.
In Asia, gains in commodities stocks helped drive the
S&P/ASX 200 to become the best performing Asia-Pacific market
so far on Thursday. This followed a surge in iron-ore prices, which
tracked the movement of steel prices, to a more-than two-year high.
Chinese rebar steel futures had surged nearly 7% on Wednesday.
Among individual resource stocks, Rio Tinto was last up 3.8%,
while Fortescue Metals rose 3.3% and BHP Billiton added 1.9%.
In Japan, industrial and financial stocks were leading gains,
with equipment maker SMC surging 4.1% and casualty insurer Sompo
Holdings rising 3%.
Shares of electronics maker Sharp surged 9.3%, making it the
best-performing large-cap Japanese stock, with analysts noting that
recent comments by Chief Executive Tai Jeng-wu have raised
expectations that the troubled electronics maker is on a firm path
to recovery.
Meanwhile, the Korean market was up despite the prospect of
early elections in Asia's fourth-largest economy. South Korean
President Park Geun-hye is widely expected to be impeached by
lawmakers on Friday, amid the country's biggest political scandal
in a generation.
Looking ahead, investors will be closely watching the European
Central Bank's meeting later Thursday. Most investors and analysts
expect at least a six-month extension to the bank's monthly
purchase of 80 billion euros ($86 billion) of assets. The ECB will
also likely ease its bond-purchase criteria to get around the
"running out of bunds" problem, analysts said.
"An extension would be good for risk assets globally," said Bill
Bowler, an equity sales trader for Asian equities at Forsyth Barr
Asia.
Most Asia-Pacific government bonds strengthened Thursday ahead
of the ECB decision, with Australia's 10-year debt yield falling
6.3 basis points to bid at 2.743% and New Zealand's 10-year debt
yield down 5 basis points to bid at 3.20%, according to Thomson
Reuters. Yields fall as bond prices rise.
Rhiannon Hoyle, Kosaku Narioka, Jonathan Cheng, Carol Chan,
Akane Otani and Sam Goldfarb contributed to this article.
Write to Kenan Machado at kenan.machado@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 07, 2016 23:45 ET (04:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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