Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Monday, tracking a firmer Wall Street, as second-quarter Japan GDP gains beat expectations and investors digested the release of a barrage of China data on Monday. Though, the Japanese market is declining after it re-opened following a public holiday on Friday. Investors shrugged off better-than-expected Japanese GDP data. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong are in positive territory. Bucking the trend, Taiwan is lower.
Hang Seng jumped 314.25 points or 1.17% to 27,197.76, Straits Times gained 23.47 points or 0.72% to 3,303.19, Jakarta Composite added 22.75 points or 0.39% to 5,788.89, KOSPI Index strengthen 15.93 points or 0.69% to 2,335.64, Shanghai Composite rose 13.94 points or 0.43% to 3,222.48, and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was up by 3.63 points or 0.21% to 1,770.59.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 declined 161.89 points or 0.82% to 19,567.85, and Taiwan Weighted was down by 42.3 points or 0.41% to 10,287.27.