Asian stock markets rose on Friday after Wall Street hit a new high as fears of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 eased.
Taipei, Hong Kong and Sydney all advanced, while Tokyo and Shanghai declined.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index on Thursday rose 0.6 percent in the last US trading session before Christmas.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Investor anxiety has mounted as Omicron spread, but moderated after authorities said it might cause less severe illness.
US President Joe Biden called for more vaccinations and testing, but announced no plans for travel restrictions.
Omicron looks like a “short-term disruption” instead of a “destructive headwind that knocks the economy off its course,” Oanda Corp senior market analyst Edward Moya said in a report. “The US economic recovery in 2022 still looks very strong.”
In Taiwan, the TAIEX ended up 14.98 points, or 0.08 percent, at 17,961.64, posting a weekly increase of 0.84 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.05 percent to 28,782.59, but rose 0.83 percent from a week earlier, while the broader TOPIX dropped 0.13 percent to 1,986.78, up 0.12 percent on the week.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.13 percent to 23,223.76, gaining 0.13 percent from a week earlier, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.69 percent to 3,618.05, posting a weekly decline of 0.39 percent.
Seoul’s KOSPI added 0.48 percent to 3,012.43, but dropped 0.18 percent from a week earlier, while Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.44 percent higher at 7,420.3, up 1.59 percent on the week.
New Zealand and Jakarta advanced, while Bangkok retreated. Singapore was closed for Christmas.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS