Asian markets ended mostly higher on Thursday tracking Wall Street’s gains overnight after drug makers BioNTech and Pfizer said a third shot of their vaccine was found to neutralise the new Omicron variant in preliminary tests. Meanwhile, investors focus is now shifting to the release of US inflation data on Friday and next week's US Federal meeting. Chinese shares settled higher as investors digested the latest inflation data with the producer price index grew 12.9% year on year, while the consumer price index grew 2.3% year-on-year and 0.4% month-on-month in November. However, Japanese shares declined as investors turned cautious ahead of Fed, BOJ meetings next week.
Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
Shanghai Composite | 3,673.04 | 35.47 | 0.98 |
Hang Seng | 24,254.86 | 257.99 | 1.08 |
Jakarta Composite | 6,643.93 | 40.13 | 0.61 |
KLSE Composite | 1,501.79 | 7.76 | 0.52 |
Nikkei 225 | 28,725.47 | -135.15 | -0.47 |
Straits Times | 3,142.45 | 12.68 | 0.41 |
KOSPI Composite | 3,029.57 | 27.77 | 0.93 |
Taiwan Weighted | 17,914.12 | 81.70 | 0.46 |
