Stocks up slightly in Tokyo, but slip in Hong Kong and Shanghai
TOKYO — Asian shares were mixed Monday, as initial euphoria about the gains that closed out last week on Wall Street faded quickly.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 NIK, +0.27% gained 0.2% in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, -0.19% lost earlier gains, inching down 0.1%, while South Korea’s Kospi 180721, +0.37% added 0.2%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI, -0.45% dipped 0.6%, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +0.21% edged down 0.1%. Stocks slipped in Taiwan Y9999, -0.37% but gained in Singapore STI, +0.79% and Indonesia JAKIDX, +0.08%.
Worries about the coronavirus pandemic remain strong in the region, in contrast to the U.S. and parts of Europe, where life is increasingly returning to something resembling normalcy, but the vaccine rollout is gradually picking up steam in Asia.
Much of the regional economy depends of exports to the West. Data being released this week, such as trade data for China and industrial production for India, are expected to reflect the rebound from the pandemic.
“Consensus expectations around activity data being released this week in Asia looks strong,” Venkateswaran Lavanya of the Asia & Oceania Treasury Department at Mizuho Bank in Singapore said in a commentary.
“The more pertinent question is now whether we can effectively gauge the extent of the recovery, or a lack thereof, in these economies.”
Wall Street closed out last week with a second straight weekly gain for the S&P 500 SPX, +0.88%, which rose 0.9% to 4,229.89. It followed a U.S. Labor Department report showing American employers added 559,000 jobs in May.
Technology stocks were biggest gainers and did the most to drive the broader market higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.52% gained 0.5% to 34,756.39. The rally in technology stocks helped push the Nasdaq COMP, +1.47% to a solid gain. The tech-heavy index climbed 1.5% to 13,814.49.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude CLN21, -0.36% fell 18 cents to $69.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 81 cents to $69.62 per barrel on Friday. Brent crude BRNQ21, -0.43%, the international standard, lost 29 cents to $71.60 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar USDJPY, -0.14% rose to 109.58 Japanese yen from 109.49 yen.