Asian markets were higher this morning during trade hours as they follow Wall Street, which closed higher on Monday, extending their win streak to six days. Chinese markets remain closed for the Lunar New Year Holiday.
The Asian benchmark in Japan, the Nikkei 225 was up 1.13 percent. The broader Topix index gained some 1.2 percent. South Korea’s Kospi composite index was up 0.87 percent.
Elsewhere in the Asian and Pacific Rim, the Australian ASX 200 reversed early losses to move up 0.36 percent. The heavily weighted financial sub index gained 0.39 percent. The energy sector lost 1.07 percent and materials were down 0.12 percent.
Oil stocks were rather mixed. Shares of Santos gained 1.39 percent, Oil Search jumped 2.96 percent and Beach Energy was up 4.74 percent.
However, shares of Woodside Petroleum shed 5.91 percent. This came after the company said it finished the sale of its, in Australian dollar terms, $2.5 billion share sale, that they announced on February 14. Woodside raised, before taxes, about $1.57 billion at $27 per share.
Asian Investors watch Wall Street
Major bourses in the U.S. closed off their session highs. This came after headlines that special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals. He also indicted three Russian entities for possibly interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Looking at the currency market, this morning at 8 am Hong Kong time, the Japanese yen was at 106.32 to the dollar. This was down from an earlier high of 106.11. Still, the yen had strengthened from being above 108 yen last week
The Australian dollar was trading at $0.7914. This was down from near $0.7980 seen at the close of last week.
The U.S. dollar index was at 89.078. This was down from a high of 89.11. Last week, the d retreaded from near 90 towards 88.20 before recovering.