SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific rose in Tuesday morning trade following overnight gains stateside.
Taiwan’s Taiex led gains among the region’s major markets, rising 1.62% in morning trade.
Mainland Chinese stocks were also higher, with the Shanghai composite rising 0.45% while the Shenzhen component advanced 0.461%.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.6% while the Topix index also advanced 0.25%. South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.73%.
The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia was 0.59% higher.
In Southeast Asia, Singapore’s economy expanded by 1.3% year-on-year in the first quarter, data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry released Tuesday showed. The ministry also announced it would maintain Singapore’s GDP growth forecast for 2021 at “4.0 to 6.0 per cent.” In Tuesday morning trade, the Straits Times index in Singapore gained 0.56%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.79% higher.
Tech stock watch
Technology stocks in Asia-Pacific were in focus on Tuesday.
That included China’s Kuaishou Technology, whose Hong Kong-listed shares plunged more than 8% in Tuesday morning trade despite announcing Monday a 36.6% jump in its first-quarter revenues compared to the same period of 2020.
Hong Kong-listed shares of other Chinese tech firms were mixed, with Tencent rising 1.88% while Alibaba edged 0.49% higher. JD.com, on the other hand, shed 0.57%.
Elsewhere in Tuesday morning trade, shares of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group gained about 1.2% while South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix saw its stock jump more than 2%.
Those moves came following a bounce for tech stocks stateside. Overnight on Wall Street, Alphabet — the parent of Google, Facebook and Microsoft all rose more than 2%.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 186.14 points to 34,993.98 while the S&P 500 rose 0.99% to 4,197.05. The Nasdaq Composite surged 1.41% to 13,661.17.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 89.769 — lower than levels above 90 seen recently.
The Japanese yen traded at 108.72 per dollar, stronger than levels around 108.9 against the greenback seen yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7752, following a bounce yesterday from around $0.772.
Oil prices were higher in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.25% at $68.63 per barrel. U.S. crude futures gained 0.18% to $66.17 per barrel.
Source: CNBC