HONG KONG: Asian markets enjoyed another day of strong buying on Friday, helping them to end the week with a flourish as investors looked past the China-US trade row to focus on the booming American economy.
The upbeat mood on trading floors was being felt across the board, with embattled emerging market currencies seeing a recovery, while some observers suggested a fear of missing out was also providing some lift.
Regional dealers were given a strong lead from Wall Street, where the Dow and S&P 500 chalked up record closes as easing concerns about Washington and Beijing’s tit-for-tat tariffs were mixed with a string of positive US data, including on jobless claims and household net worth.
“Make no mistake, the US economy is running on all cylinders,” said Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pacific trade at OANDA.
“Robust growth, soaring employment and rising capital investments, suggesting the healthy US economy is more than just a short-term knock-on effect from the intravenous elixir of easy credit and fiscal glucose.”
That filtered through to Asia where Tokyo ended 0.8 percent higher, Hong Kong climbed 1.8 percent in the afternoon and Shanghai surged 2.5 percent. Sydney gained 0.4 percent, Singapore jumped 1.3 percent, Seoul added 0.7 percent and Manila rallied three percent.
Taipei and Jakarta were also well up. In early trade London and Frankfurt each rose 0.6 percent, while Paris was 0.4 percent higher.
“Fundamentals in many places are very strong, particularly the US,” Grant Forster, Principal Global Investors’ chief executive officer for Australia, told Bloomberg TV. “We don’t expect this (trade row) to really derail US growth at all.”– AFP
