Asian benchmark equity indices have once again managed to stage a strong rally in Friday trades as sentiments remained buoyant on the back of sanguine global developments. The optimism was spurred by upmove on Wall Street overnight on the back of encouraging earnings announcements by majors like IBM Corp, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley coupled with the upbeat US employment reports which showed that jobless claims slipped to the lowest levels since April 2008, thereby spurring hopes that the economic situation in US is not as bad as feared and that the nation is on its road to recovery. Encouraging developments from the Euro-zone too gave a lift to sentiments in the region as Spain sold more debt than expected while bond yields in France slipped lower.
The benchmark in China traded with under half a percent gains after reports showed that the country’s manufacturing sector continued to contract for the third straight month in January however, there appeared some positive signs in the sub-index readings as the export orders sub-index showed growth in the month. Equity index in South Korea surged around a percent after foreign funds continued to pile up positions with global risk appetite invigorated by eased funding concerns in the euro zone.
Shanghai Composite ascended 8.51 points or 0.37% to 2,304.59, Hang Seng advanced 49.60 points or 0.25% to 19,992.55, Nikkei 225 soared 124.64 points or 1.44% to 8,764.32, Straits Times climbed 16.86 points or 0.60% to 2,828.06 and Seoul Composite surged 20.55 points or 1.07% to 1,935.52.
On the flipside, Jakarta Composite declined 28.43 points or 0.71% to 3,972.64.
Equity markets in Taiwan remained shut on Thursday in observance of a public holiday.
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