Investing.com - Asian stocks moved marginally higher in trade Friday, following better-than-expected U.S. labor numbers and a soothing of nerves over European debt and excessively high Italian bonds.
During early Asian trade, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 1.3% to 19,091.40, Japan’s Nikkei Index rose 0.14% to 8,512.31, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.12% to 4,249.40.
The Topix Index of all shares listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, however, lost 0.32% to trade at 727.97.
Surging Italian government bond yields that startled the market Wednesday abated, with yields on an auction of Italian government bills falling to 6.9% on Thursday from 7%, the rate at which Greece initiated requests for debt aid.
Market analysts forecast that the record high yields on Italian bonds were unsustainable and that if the country were to quickly name a successor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, it would further ease market anxieties over an Italian financial collapse.
Former European Commissioner and economist Mario Monti, emerged as the front-runner to replace Berlusconi who reportedly told Italian news sources that a Monti-led government appeared inevitable.
In Athens Thursday, Greece’s new coalition government agreed to name former European Central Bank Vice President Lucas Papademos as the country’s new prime minister.
Meanwhile Thursday, rating’s agency Standard & Poor said that it had not reduced France’s debt rating from its current AAA, clarifying an earlier transmission to subscribers as a technical error. S&P said France remained on its highest investment grade with a “stable” outlook.”
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Later Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the number of Americans filling for unemployment assistance fell to a seven-month low, down 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 390,000 for the week ending November 4.
Market expectation were for jobless claims to reach 400,000 for the period.
Wall Street dealers snapped up oversold U.S. issues from the previous session following news from Europe, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 0.94%, the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.13%, and the S&P 500 advanced 0.86%.
On Friday, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry reported that the nation’s tertiary industry activity index, the change in total value of services purchased by businesses, fell to by seasonally adjusted 0.7% in September, down from 0.0%
the previous month.
Market expectations were for the index to fall to minus 0.5% for the period. The index stood at 97.7.
Later Friday, the Bank of Korea voted to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.25%.
Bank and financial issues rebounded across the region, recovering some of the losses incurred in Thursday’s session. China Construction Bank Corp. rose 0.42%, HSBC Holdings Plc. added 0.16% and Commonwealth Bank of Australia gained 1.1%.
Exporters got a lift from the improving U.S. labor picture; Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. was lifted 1.6%, Sony Corp. rose 1.2% and LG Electronics Inc. strengthened 2.5%.
The outlook for European stocks was optimistic. France’s CAC 40 futures was higher by 0.12% to 3,027.10, Britain’s FTSE 100 futures inched up 0.06% to 5,452.70, while Germany’s DAX futures added 0.04% to 5,885.70.
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