Investing.com - Most Asian stocks shrugged off a glum end to last week by their U.S. counterparts to trade higher to start the new week. Some traders may already be looking ahead to the start of a two-day policy meeting by the Federal Reserve, which kicks of Tuesday.
In Asian trading Monday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% after falling into a bear market last week. Japanese stocks got some relief as USD/JPY traded higher after METI said that Japanese tertiary industry activity index remained unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 0.0% in May after falling 1.3% in April. Analysts had expected Japanese tertiary industry activity index to rise 0.2% last month.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 1.06%, but the Shanghai Composite slid 0.66% after data released over the weekend showed China’s electricity consumption rose 5% last month compared with a 6.8% increase in April.
For the first five months of this year, electricity consumption in the world’s second-largest economy increased 4.9%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.8% after the Australian Bureau of Statistics said new vehicle sales there inched up to a seasonally adjusted 93,209 in May, from 93,182 in April. On a year-over-year basis, the increase was a modest 0.2%. Passenger vehicle sales fell 1.2% while sales of sports utility vehicles fell 0.1%. Sales of other vehicles, including trucks, rose 3.5%.
South Korea’s Kospi inched down 0.05% after a Bank of Korea report to that nation’s policymakers listed the end of quantitative easing by the Fed and the weak yen as the biggest economic challenges faced by Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
New Zealand’s NZSE 50 rose 0.23% after consumer confidence data there jumped to a three-year high.
Singapore’s Straits Times Index advanced 0.69% even after data showed exports fell 4.6% last month following a 1% drop in April. Economists expected a May decrease of just 0.2%.
S&P 500 futures added 0.42%. The benchmark U.S. index closed with a weekly loss last week.