Asian Traders Look forward to the NFP

Asian markets where trading in the green by noon time on Friday. Asian and regional traders are now shifting focus towards today non-farm payroll (NFP) release for the month of November.

However, confusing headlines surrounding ongoing trade negotiations between China and the United States are capping gains as sentiment remains weak. Trade talks seem to be, once again, stalling.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was up 0.33 percent by noon time. The broader Topix index, in Tokyo, was up a fraction of a percent.

In South Korea, the Kospi composite index added 0.78 percent as shares of Samsung Electronics gained one percent. Shares of rival chip maker SK Hynix also added one percent to help boost the Kospi.

Elsewhere in the Asian and Pacific Rim, the Australian ASX 200 was trading up 0.3 percent on the day.

On the mainland, in China, the Shanghai composite rose 0.2 percent and shares on the smaller Shenzhen composite added 0.33 percent. The Shenzhen component rose 0.35 percent.

In Hong Kong, shares on the headline Hang Seng index tacked on over 0.6 percent.  

Asian Investors Start Thinking about today’s Non-Farm Payroll Labor Report

Later today, during the North American trade session, all eyes will focus on key labor data out of the United States.  At 1:30 pm GMT, the U.S. will publish the highly anticipated non-farm payroll (NFP) labor report.

Traders will also watch the U.S. unemployment rate, monthly hourly wages and the labor participation rate.

On Wednesday, the ADP non-farm employment change, showed that private firms added only 67K new jobs in November. This was well below market expectations and puts today’s NFP under added pressure.

The NFP is expected to show that U.S. economy added 189K new jobs in November. The unemployment rate is expected to come in at 3.6 percent.

At 3 pm GMT, traders will get to see preliminary consumer sentiment data, from the University of Michigan.