Asian Markets Track Wall Street Higher

Asian stocks tracked an upbeat day on Wall Street and moved higher this morning. The price of crude oil moved higher, improving sentiment.

Oil prices have rallied over six percent, since Tuesday, as there are renewed hopes that eh cartel of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have reached a deal to cut output. During the Asian hours, the WTI US Crude contract was slightly lower to $45.67 and the global Brent futures contract was also a bit lower to $46.92 per barrel.

Looking at the Australian benchmark, the S&P ASX 200, stocks were flat at 0.1 percent lower. The materials sub-index was down 1.48 percent. However, the energy sub-index was up 2.32 percent to help cap losses on the Australian stock exchange.

The Nikkei Leads Asian Markets Higher

This morning, the Japanese headline stock bourse, the Nikkei 225 was up over 1.1 percent. The yen remains weaker against the Dollar which is supporting exporting stocks. The yen, as of 12:40 am HK time, was trading at 109.10. Before the US election for President the yen was close to the ¥105 handle.

In corporate news, this morning in Japan, the online game maker Nintendo announced its will release its Super Mario run mobile game on December 15. Share leaped nearly three percent to ¥25,575.

This morning, stocks in mainland China were mixed. The Shanghai Composite was down 0.1 percent and the Shenzhen Composite rose 0.25 percent. Sentiment is mixed as the Hong Kong to Shenzhen stock connect will open this month.

The Chinese yuan continues to weaken against the US Dollar. As of 1245 pm HK time, the yuan was at 6.868. This is its lowest level since January 2009. Today, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) lowered its midpoint for the currency to 6.8592. This is the ninth day in a row it has lowered it.