The stock market in the Asia-Pacific region showed positive dynamics today amid good news from the United States. As it became known, the number of applications for unemployment benefits significantly declined, which was encouraged by market participants and not expected by experts. Another positive news was the extension of agreements between OPEC member countries to reduce oil production for another two months.
New Zealand also provided support to the Asia-Pacific stock market. The country's authorities announced that the state managed to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and they are ready to lift the restrictive measures that have been imposed earlier. In this regard, all bans will be lifted starting tomorrow. Only the borders of the country will remain closed so far. In view of this, the government is going to focus all its forces on the active and rapid restoration of economic growth, which please investors.
China's Shanghai Composite index rose 0.24% today, which allowed it to reach its highest value in almost three months. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, also grew modestly, which added 0.03%. Chinese foreign exchange reserves were positive here, which became 10.23 billion more last month and rose to a total of $ 3.102 trillion. This is the maximum value since February of this year. At the same time, there was an increase in the foreign trade surplus, which was facilitated by a slight decline in exports and a sharp drop in imports against the background of a decline in domestic demand, which was provoked by the same COVID-19 pandemic.
The largest gains during the trading session in Hong Kong were recorded in the shares of the following companies: CNOOC grew by 2.1%, Hang Seng Bank Ltd. added 3.4%, while China Life Insurance rose 3.3%.
However, there is a slight decline. Thus, Tencent Holdings securities fell 1%, while China Mobile shares fell even more - 1.3%.
On the other hand, Japan's Nikkei 225 Index showed positive dynamics, it was up 1.37%. And this is despite the fact that the news on the economy is not very impressive. So, the country's GDP declined by 0.6% for the first quarter of this year. This suggests that the state faced a recession again, which had not been for more than four years. However, the decline did not become serious, preliminary data were much worse - a fall of around 0.9% was expected. Perhaps, this last fact supported the stock market, forcing it to move up.
In the corporate sector of Japan, great success was achieved by car manufacturers. Securities of Nissan Motor Co. increased by 7.8%, Toyota Motor increased by1.4%, Subaru Corp. increased by 2.6%, while Mitsubishi Motors Corp. increased by 3.6%.
South Korea's Index (KOSPI) also climbed 0.11% on the first day of the new work week. At the same time, the best results here were noted again by the car manufacturer Kia Motor, whose shares jumped 2.5% in price. However, a decline was recorded by Samsung Electronics Co., which pulled back 1.1%.
At the same time, Singapore's STI index showed extremely positive dynamics. It was able to reach its maximum values for the last three months.
The stock markets in Taiwan and Indonesia rose. On the contrary, Australia did not work today, because the country has a national holiday.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company - www.instaforex.com