Asian Markets Track Wall Street Higher

(RTTNews) - Asian stock markets are trading mostly higher on Monday, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday, amid easing trade war tensions after leaders of the U.S. and China agreed to further talks aimed at reaching a deal. Slightly stronger than expected U.S. job growth in May also helped offset concerns about the strength of the economy following some recent downbeat data. Asian markets closed mixed on Friday.

The Australian stock market is closed for King's Birthday on Monday. Australian stocks closed modestly lower on Friday.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.651 on Monday.

The Japanese stock market is trading significantly higher on Monday, extending the gains in the previous session, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 38,100 level, with gains across most sectors led by index heavyweights and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index closed the morning session at 38,137.09, up 395.48 points or 1.05 percent, after touching a high of 38,178.01 earlier. Japanese shares ended notably higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining almost 4 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding almost 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging up 0.1 percent, while Toyota is edging down 0.2 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is surging almost 5 percent and Tokyo Electron is edging up 0.5 percent, while Screen Holdings is declining more than 2 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are gaining almost 1 percent, while Mizuho Financial is adding more than 2 percent.

The major exporters are mostly higher. Sony is gaining more than 1 percent, Canon is edging up 0.2 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is adding more than 2 percent, while Panasonic is losing almost 2 percent.

Among the other major gainers, Otsuka Holdingsis soaring almost 9 percent, Socionext is surging almost 8 percent and Recruit Holdings is gaining more than 3 percent, while Disco, Fujitsu and Fujikura are adding almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, M3 is losing more than 3 percent and Kanadevia is declining almost 3 percent.

In economic news, Japan's gross domestic product was unchanged on a seasonally adjusted quarterly basis from the previous quarter, the Cabinet Office said on Monday. That beat forecasts for a decline of 0.2 percent following the 0.6 percent increase in the three months prior. On an annualized basis, GDP was down 0.2 percent - also exceeding expectations for a decline of 0.4 percent following the 0.7 percent drop in the previous three months.

Japan also posted a current account surplus of 2.258 trillion yen in April, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday. That was shy of expectations for a surplus of 2.560 trillion yen and was down from 3.678 trillion yen in March.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 144 yen-range on Monday.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea and Hong Kong are up 1.7 and 1.3 percent, respectively. China, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan are higher by between 0.2 and 0.8 percent each. New Zealand is bucking the trend and is down 0.3 percent. Indonesia is closed for Eid-al-Adha holiday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a significant move back to the upside during trading on Friday after ending yesterday's volatile session mostly lower. With the strong upward move, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 reached their best closing levels in over three months.

The major averages surged early in the session and remained firmly positive throughout the day. The Nasdaq shot up 231.50 points or 1.2 percent to 19,529.95, the Dow surged 443.13 points or 1.1 percent to 42,762.87 and the S&P 500 jumped 61.06 points or 1.0 percent to 6,000.36.

Meanwhile, the major European markets also ended the day mixed. While the German DAX Index edged down by 0.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index crept up by 0.2 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index rose by 0.3 percent.

Crude oil prices moved higher on Friday in response to the better-than-expected jobs data. West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery was up $1.21 to $64.58 per barrel; it was up 6 percent for the week.