Major Asian markets were mostly in positive territory on Friday afternoon following the easing of U.S.-Iran tensions, and after U.S. stocks shot to new highs overnight.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.47% to close at 23,850.57, while the Topix was up 0.35% to 1,735.16.
A day before, retail giant Fast Retailing cut its full-year outlook after worse-than-expected quarterly results, which it pinned on protests in Hong Kong and a boycott by South Korean consumers which hit sales at its Uniqlo retail stores. Shares of the company closed down 2.78% on Friday.
Over in South Korea, the Kospi jumped 0.91% to close at 2,206.39.
Ahead of Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections set to take place on Saturday, the Taiex traded up 0.45% to close at 12,024.65.
Citing the last five elections as a benchmark, Toby Wu, senior analyst at brokerage eToro, said that global economic factors have a bigger influence on Taiwan’s stock market.
“We can expect the stock market to experience a period of general rise after the elections. The global economy is expected to improve in 2020 and with Taiwan’s economy, which is based on internal investment, producing positive results in 2019, we can expect to see Taiwan maintaining good growth after the elections,” he wrote in a note on Friday.
Mainland Chinese markets bucked the upward trend. The Shanghai composite inched down to close at 3,092.29, while the Shenzhen composite fell 0.18% to 1,797.35 and the Shenzhen component dropped 0.17% to 10,879.84.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index, however, climbed 0.19% in its final hour of trade.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.48%.
Apple suppliers
Apple suppliers in Asia were closely monitored after the tech giant’s shares jumped 2.1% to a record high. That was on the back of news that iPhone sales in China rose more than 18% in December, according to Chinese government data.
In Japan, Sharp pared gains to rise 0.93% after surging around 2% in the morning, and Alps Alpine was up 1.11%, and Murata rose 1.07%. South Korea’s LG Display was nearly 1%. Samsung Electronics hit a new record high in intra-day trade, rising 1.54% by the close.
Over in Hong Kong, Sunny Optical bounced 1.21%. Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry surged 1.90%, and Largan Precision soared 4.11%.
source: CNBC
