Investing.com – Asian stocks were set to rise modestly on Friday, spurred by positive news on the China-U.S. trade war front and a surge in U.S. stocks overnight.
Spurred by a number of positive drivers, the MSCI AC Asia Pacific was poised to hit its largest one-week gain since June and was up 0.17% early in the morning.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index continued to rally for the third day in a row. The city's benchmark index was up 0.60% to 26,658 at the opening as of 9:33 PM ET (01:30 GMT). The worst performing major stock market in the world in August, Hong Kong has surged more than 5% over the past two days after Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she would formally withdraw a controversial extradition bill that has sparked 14 weeks of often violent protests and widespread social unrest.
China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.20% early in the morning session to 2,992, and the Shenzhen Component was up 0.86% to 9,783.
U.S. markets rose to their highest levels since the end of July during the trading day on Thursday after news emerged that the U.S. and China planned to hold negotiations in October. The thaw followed a problematic weekend during which new tariffs took effect on both sides. The S&P 500 closed up 1.3% and the NASDAQ Composite was up 1.75% at the close of trading.
Markets in the U.S. were also spurred by data showing that private payrolls grew by 195,000 in August, higher than the expected 140,000 bump that economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.45% to 21,218. Household spending increased 0.8% in July from a year earlier, according to data out today. The growth was slower than the 2.7% increase the month earlier. The increase did not meet the median estimate for a 1.1% gain. The ongoing bout of expansion is now eight months old and is the longest since 2000, when the data first became available.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s KOSPI was up 0.24% to 2,009 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.56% to 6,650.