Asian markets showed positive momentum, recovering from an overnight surge on Wall Street, where stocks posted their biggest daily gain since November 2022. According to the Financial Times newspaper, this positive trend in Asia was the result of a calmer perception of economic risks, after a decrease in the number of applications for unemployment benefits in the United States.
Japan's Topix closed up 1%, while South Korea's Kospi and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose about 1.5% on Friday. Taiwan's TWSE was the biggest gainer, closing 2.9% higher, driven by a strong market in semiconductor stocks, including chipmaker TSMC.
U.S. stocks surprised investors with their biggest daily gain since November 2022 on Thursday, as a drop in jobless claims helped calm fears of a possible economic slowdown. The S&P 500 rose 2.3% for its best day in nearly 21 months, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 2.9%, its biggest daily gain since February. These changes helped partially offset losses caused by a sharp selloff in the market this week.
Japanese markets also rose, with the Topix and Nikkei 225 indexes up about 1% on Friday. The yen, which weighed on Tokyo shares on Monday after the Bank of Japan's rate hike, remained steady at around 147 yen to the dollar.
However, let's recall that during the last three weeks, global stock markets lost about 6.4 trillion dollars. The fall that occurred on Monday surprised even the most experienced traders. The Nikkei 225 edged higher after its biggest one-day drop since 1987, while S&P 500 futures rose 1.3%. Still, shares in the S&P 500 index fell sharply minutes after the US market opened, underscoring continued volatility in financial markets.
