TOKYO — Asian shares rose Monday, cheered by a rally on Wall Street as a grim jobs report signaled to investors that interest rates will likely stay low.
Japan’s Nikkei 225
NIK,
+0.65%
rose 0.8% in morning trading and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO,
+0.81%
jumped 1%. South Korea’s Kospi
180721,
+1.39%
added 1.4%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
HSI,
-0.50%
dipped 0.3%, while the Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP,
+0.06%
advanced 0.1%. Stocks rose in Indonesia
JAKIDX,
+0.71%
but retreated in Singapore
STI,
-0.56%
and Taiwan
Y9999,
-0.18%.
The regional gains are coming despite a recent surge in coronavirus infections in Asia.
In Japan, worries are growing about tens of thousands of athletes and officials entering the country for the Tokyo Olympics, set to open in July. Many will be from countries where people have been vaccinated, while the rollout has been extremely slow in Japan, with about 3% of the population inoculated so far. The Tokyo Olympics organizers are promising stringent measures to prevent clusters and testing the athletes and officials regularly for infections.
Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist for IG in Singapore, said investors are watching for inflation and retail sales data out of the U.S. and for British economic growth data.
On Friday, the S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.74%
rose 0.7% to 4,232.60, its third straight gain, and topping the previous all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.66%
gained 0.7% to 34,777.76, setting a record high for the third straight day. The Nasdaq composite
COMP,
+0.88%
picked up 0.9%, to 13,752.24.
Recent relatively strong global earnings reports have lifted share prices. Among companies reporting earnings later this week are Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp
TM,
+0.45%.
, Honda Motor Co.
HMC,
+0.88%
and Nissan Motor Co.
7201,
+4.27%.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude
CLM21,
+0.40%
added 79 cents to $65.69 a barrel. It gained 19 cents to $64.90 per barrel on Friday. Brent crude
BRNN21,
+0.45%,
the international standard, gained 85 cents to $69.13 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar
USDJPY,
+0.29%
rose to 108.87 Japanese yen from 108.59 yen late Friday.
