SINGAPORE — Stocks in Asia-Pacific were little changed following an overnight bounce for tech stocks on Wall Street as a recent rotation into cyclicals paused.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 advanced 0.6% in early trade while the Topix index was fractionally lower. In South Korea, the Kospi dipped 0.33%.
Shares of Australia nudged higher, with the S&P/ASX 200 gaining about 0.1%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares traded fractionally lower.
Technology shares in the region rose in Thursday morning trade after the sector bounced overnight stateside.
In Japan, Softbank Group shares jumped 1.93%. Game maker Nintendo also surged 2.57%. Over in South Korea, Kakao’s stock gained 1.27%.
In recent sessions, investors have moved out of technology and “stay-at-home” stocks in favor of cyclicals that would benefit from an economic recovery. That came following a Monday announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 among those without evidence of prior infection.
Still, the pandemic situation remains severe, with the U.S. recently setting a new record of average daily cases while the United Kingdom reported its highest daily deaths since May.
Currencies
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 93.043 after seeing levels above 93.1 earlier.
The Japanese yen traded at 105.41 per dollar, still off levels below 104.3 against the greenback seen earlier this week. The Australian dollar was at $0.7281, having seen levels around $0.73 yesterday.
Source: CNBC