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A pedestrian walks along the waterfront Tsim Sha Tsui of Kowloon which lies to the port of Victoria in Hong Kong.
TOKYO – Asian equities were higher on Friday over hopes of developing a vaccine for coronavirus, although concerns remained about long-term economic damage from the pandemic.
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The rise in regional benchmarks echoes the gains on Wall Street, which were led by large technology companies benefiting from people staying home during the outbreak.
Japanese benchmark Nikkei 225 (JP: NIK) gained 0.3% in early trading. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (HK: HSI) added 1.5%, while the Shanghai Composite (CN: SHCOMP) increased 0.8%. The Kospi of South Korea (KR: 180721) grew by 1.8%, while the S & P / ASX 200 of Australia (AU: XJO) did not change much. Benchmark indices in Taiwan (TW: Y9999) and Singapore (SG: STI) won.
Reports that the Pfizer (PFE) vaccine is on track to check regulation in October voiced sentiment despite continued uncertainty about global growth, said Jingyi Pan, market strategist at IG in Singapore.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said they would take their COVID-19 vaccine candidate with the least side effects in the final-stage test. It’s one of a handful of experimental faxes to reach end-to-end tests around the world.
“Asian markets have pushed Wall Street wide with gains, also helped by the latest impulse news sentiment for sentiment,” Pan said.
The S&P 500 (SPX) rose 0.3% after reversing an earlier loss of 0.6% as investors awaited new government data pending an increase in the number of Americans seeking unemployment assistance last week.
The discouraging report helped send two out of every three supplies into the S&P 500 army. Energy producers and financial companies had some of the sharpest drops. But tech shares in the S&P 500 still rose 1.4%, continuing with a remarkable run of resilience.
The S&P 500 scored 10.66 points after 3,385.51. The gains keep the benchmark index close to its record level. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) gained 46.85 points, or 0.2%, to 27,739.73.
The strength of tech stocks helped the Nasdaq Composite (COMP) rise 118.49 points, or 1.1%, to 11,264.95, a record high.
Benchmark U.S. crude (CLU20) fell 35 cents to $ 42.58 a barrel. Brent crude (UK: BRNV20), the international standard, won 13 cents to $ 45.03 per barrel.
The US dollar (USDJPY) rose to 105.70 Japanese yen from 105.87 yen on Thursday.
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