SHANGHAI, April 24 — Equity markets in Asia rose this morning after upbeat earnings helped the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes reach record closing highs on Wall Street overnight, while oil retreated from its near six-month highs.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.1 percent in early trade in Asia. The gains followed a strong performance on Wall Street, driven by robust results from Coca-Cola, Twitter, United Technologies and Lockheed Martin.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.52 per cent to 26,647.97, the S&P 500 gained 0.91 per cent to 2,934.31 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.35 per cent to 8,123.25.
This morning, S&P 500 e-mini stock futures were up 0.03 per cent at 2,938.75, just short of a record high of 2,944.75 on October 3.
Australian shares gained 0.6 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei stock index was 0.3 per cent higher. Seoul's Kospi was up 0.1 per cent.
Analyst said that alongside better-than-feared corporate earnings, a more supportive policy environment is helping to boost risk appetites.
“The Fed has been joined in its dovish tilt by major central banks across the globe ... the tilt globally reflects genuine concern not to allow individual countries and the globe to tip into recession. That risk has receded,” Greg McKenna, strategist at McKenna Macro in Australia, said in a note to clients.
Equity market gains had been bolstered yesterday by rising energy shares after Brent crude, the global benchmark, hit its highest level since November 1.
Oil prices had surged after the United States ended six months of waivers that allowed Iran's eight biggest buyers, most of them in Asia, to continue importing limited volumes of Iranian oil.
Gulf Opec members said that rather than offset any shortfall resulting from the US decision on waivers, they would raise output only if there was demand.
But early today, Brent had given up some gains, trading down 0.54 per cent at UUS$74.11 (RM305.75) per barrel. US crude dipped 0.54 to US$65.94 a barrel.
US Treasury yields ticked lower. Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes yielded 2.5686 percent compared with a US close of 2.57 per cent yesterday, while the two-year yield, slipped to 2.3516 per cent, compared with a US close of 2.364 per cent.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, eased 0.03 per cent to 97.606. The US dollar was down 0.04 per cent against the yen to 111.82.
The euro edged 0.08 per cent lower to buy US$1.1216.
Spot gold fell about 0.1 per cent to US$1,271.07 per ounce. — Reuters
