A man looks at an electronic board displaying stock information at the Australian Securities Exchange, operated by ASX Ltd. on March 16, 2020 in Sydney, Australia.
Brendon Thorne | Getty Images
Shares in the Asia-Pacific rose on Friday as investors look ahead to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole later stateside.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.06%, with banks and mining stocks higher.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.65% while the Topix increased 0.28%. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong gained 0.7%, with the Hang Seng Tech index up 0.57%.
The Kospi in South Korea advanced 0.25% and the Kosdaq was fell 0.29%.
Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite ticked fractionally higher, and the Shenzhen Component gained 0.124%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.67% higher.
“Hawkish commentary out of a cast of Fed speakers overnight was of little consequence as markets await Powell’s keynote at Jackson Hole this evening,” Taylor Nugent, an economist at National Australia Bank, wrote in a note Friday. He noted Fed speakers have said the central bank’s task of fighting inflation isn’t over, and that rates need to enter restrictive territory.
Overnight in the U.S., major indexes rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 322.55 points, or 0.98%, to 33,291.78. The S&P 500 gained 1.41% to 4,199.12, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.67% to 12,639.27.
A slew of companies listed in Hong Kong will be reporting earnings, including Meituan.