Asian stocks advanced before the US payrolls report for last month.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed 0.4 percent, set for its biggest weekly gain in a year as South Korea’s KOSPI index rose. Chinese shares reversed early losses and futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were little changed.
Markets across Asia, the US and Europe were closed for holidays on Friday.
Futures show traders pushed back bets on US Federal Reserve interest-rate increases to the latest ever ahead of a report that was expected to show US employers slowed their rate of hiring last month.
Iran and world powers said they reached an outline accord over nuclear arms.
The Bloomberg gauge tracking the dollar against 10 of its most-traded peers retreated 1.6 percent since the Fed’s March 19 meeting, when the central bank cut its outlook for rates.
The emerging-markets stock index rose 4 percent this week, its biggest such advance since March last year, on the back of a four-day surge in Hong Kong-listed Chinese shares before the Easter holiday.
Construction companies led the KOSPI’s 0.6 percent gain in Seoul. Daelim Industrial Co jumped 4.2 percent and Sambu Construction Co surged 7 percent amid speculation that South Korean builders may win more orders from Iran, Shinyoung Securities analyst Park Sera said.
More than half of the 33 industry groups on Japan’s TOPIX advanced.
Equity markets in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India and Singapore were shut.
The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.3 percent after falling as much as 0.9 percent in early trade.
The gauge is up 86 percent since the end of June last year. China’s securities regulator approved 30 initial public offerings for this month.
Malaysia’s benchmark equity gauge was little changed and heading toward a third weekly gain.
Thai shares rose in Bangkok and Vietnam’s major gauge climbed 0.1 percent.
In other markets on Friday, Taipei, Mumbai, Wellington and Manila were closed for public holidays.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day