THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 26, 2022 at 15:05 JST
People wearing face masks stand in front of an electronic board showing the Hong Kong share index in Hong Kong, April 26, 2022. (AP Photo)
Asian shares were mostly higher Tuesday after U.S. stocks stormed back from sharp losses to log strong gains.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai advanced while Sydney declined. Oil prices rose and U.S. futures also were higher.
South Korea reported that its economy grew at a 3.1 percent annual pace in the first quarter of the year, up 0.7 percent from the previous quarter, suggesting a rebound from the travails of the pandemic.
The government has recently lifted most COVID restrictions as case numbers have abated after a wave of the omicron variant.
“This should drive a bounce back in downtrodden parts of the service sector. And a further drop in precautionary savings should provide an extra boost to consumption,” Alex Holmes of Capital Economics said in a commentary. “With private consumption still well below pre-pandemic levels, there is plenty of scope for a rebound,” he said.
The Kospi in Seoul gained 0.7 percent to 2,675.21. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 percent to 26,726.65 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.2 percent to 20,112.90. The Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.5 percent to 2,943.22.
Brent crude, the standard for pricing international oil, gained 77 cents to $102.93 per barrel.
The dollar slipped to 127.75 Japanese yen from 128.14 yen late Monday. The euro rose to $1.0730 from $1.0713.
On Monday, the S&P 500 climbed 0.6 percent to 4,296.12 after erasing an early 1.7 percent loss. The rally was led by stocks of internet-related companies, including Twitter, which jumped 5.7 percent after agreeing to let Tesla CEO and tweeter extraordinaire Elon Musk buy it.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.7 percent to 34,049.46, while the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.3 percent to 13,004.85.
The S&P 500 is coming off a three-week losing streak, dogged by worries about the Federal Reserve’s plans to move faster in raising interest rates to curb high inflation.
Gains for several big tech-related stocks were the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500 Monday, including a 2.4 percent gain for Microsoft and a 2.9 percent rise for the Class A shares of Google’s parent, Alphabet.
Both are set to report their latest quarterly results on Tuesday.
Wall Street is in the midst of one of the most important stretches of the earnings season. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and the parent company of Google are all on deck to report this week. Since they’re among the biggest companies by market value, their movements hold the most sway over the S&P 500.
The week started out on a downbeat note, particularly in China, over fears that strict lockdown measures there might further crimp the world’s second-largest economy, potentially hurting global economic growth. Stocks in Shanghai slumped 5.1 percent Monday, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 3.7 percent.
China’s capital, Beijing, has begun mass testing of more than 3 million people and restricted residents in one part of the city to their compounds, sparking worries of a wider lockdown similar to Shanghai. That city has been locked down for more than two weeks and that has already prompted the International Monetary Fund to trim its growth forecast for China’s economy.
Worries are also high that the U.S. economy might slow sharply or even fall into a recession because of the big interest-rate increases the Fed is expected to push through.
Besides their bottom-line profit numbers, investors are also looking for a better sense of how big companies in the technology, industrial and retail sectors are handling rising inflation and supply chain issues.
Inflation remains a key concern for investors. Investors are worried about whether the Fed will be able to hike rates enough to quell inflation but not so much as to cause a recession. The chair of the Federal Reserve has indicated the central bank may hike short-term interest rates by double the usual amount at upcoming meetings, starting next week. The Fed has already raised its key overnight rate once, the first such increase since 2018.
Wall Street will also get some key economic data this week. The Conference Board will release its measure of consumer confidence for April on Tuesday. The Commerce Department will release its first-quarter gross domestic product report on Thursday.
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