Asian equity markets ended mostly higher on Friday, with a weakening yen, higher oil prices, optimism over US tax reform plans, solid industrial profits data from China and encouraging results from US tech companies boosting investors’ sentiments. Traders also took the ECB's bond-buying cutback announcement in their stride. The European Central Bank on Thursday took its first cautious steps toward normalization by announcing that it will reduce the size of its asset purchases at the start of next year while extending them for nine months. Japanese shares hit a fresh 21-year high, led by technology stocks after online retailer Amazon, chipmaker Intel and software giant Microsoft all posted quarterly earnings that surpassed Wall Street expectations. Google's parent company Alphabet also performed better than a year ago. Further, Chinese shares ended higher after official data showed China's industrial profit growth accelerated further in September. Industrial profits surged 27.7 percent year-over-year in September, faster than the 24.0 percent spike in August. Moreover, the latest rate of growth was the quickest since 2011.
Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
Shanghai Composite | 3,416.81 | 9.25 | 0.27 |
Hang Seng | 28,438.85 | 236.47 | 0.84 |
Jakarta Composite | 5,975.28 | -20.57 | -0.34 |
KLSE Composite | 1,746.13 | 9.33 | 0.54 |
Nikkei 225 | 22,008.45 | 268.67 | 1.24 |
Straits Times | 3,386.44 | 30.19 | 0.90 |
KOSPI Composite | 2,496.63 | 16.00 | 0.64 |
Taiwan Weighted | 10,709.11 | -25.65 | -0.24 |