Asian shares mostly gain, US futures also advance after Wall St ends with gains

Bangkok, Nov 24 (AP) Asian shares were mostly higher and US futures advanced Monday after Wall Street ended on an upbeat note after much drama last week.

Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

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Kong’s benchmark, the Hang Seng, rose 1.3 per cent to 25,550.89. It got a boost from a 4.7 per cent gain for e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has reported strong demand for its new Qwen AI app. Alibaba is due to report earnings on Tuesday.

The Shanghai Composite index, one of the few regional markets to decline, fell 0.3 per cent to 3,821.68.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.1 per cent to 8,507.60 In South Korea, the Kospi climbed as technology shares settled after a rough few days of volatility spurred by worries over the craze for artificial intelligence will be sustained.

Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.4 per cent and the Sensex in India edged 0.1 per cent higher.

The future for the S&P 500 rose 0.6 per cent while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3 per cent.

This week, US markets will be closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, which will be followed by the Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail rushes.

After last week’s ups and downs over AI and Nvidia, traders will focus more on “the backbone of US growth, the consumer, whose spending still drives two-thirds of GDP,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

Data on the US economy was scarce during the 6-week US government shutdown, leaving investors struggling to parse trends in the economy.

“This makes any sniff of holiday activity — foot traffic, discount depth, card authorizations — disproportionately important. In a data desert, even a puddle looks like a lake,” he said.

On Friday, the S&P 500 gained 1 per cent to 6,602.99 and the Dow climbed 1.1 per cent to 46,245.41. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.9 per cent to 22,273.08. Nearly 90 per cent of stocks in the S&P 500 advanced.

It was a fitting finish for a week that left the S&P 500 just 4.2 per cent below its record but also forced investors to stomach the sharpest hour-to-hour swings since a sell-off in April. The jarring moves are testing investors following a monthslong and remarkably smooth surge for stocks, and they come down to two basic as-yet unanswered questions.

Have prices for Nvidia, bitcoin and other stars of Wall Street shot too high? And is the Federal Reserve done with its cuts to interest rates, which would boost the economy and prices for investments? Markets took heart from a speech by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, John Williams, who told a conference in Chile that he sees “room for a further adjustment” to interest rates.

Other Fed officials have argued against a December cut, saying inflation is still too high.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased Friday on hopes for cuts from the Fed Traders are now betting on a nearly 72 per cent probability of a December cut, up sharply from 39 per cent a day before, according to data from CME Group. That helped send the yield on the 10-year Treasury to 4.06 per cent from 4.10 per cent late Thursday.

In other dealings early Monday, US benchmark crude oil lost 6 cents to USD 58.00 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 4 cents to USD 61.90 a barrel.

The US dollar rose to 156.65 Japanese yen from 156.47 yen. The euro edged to USD 1.1519 from USD 1.1516.

Bitcoin was up 3.2 per cent at USD 87,350. On Friday, it briefly plunged below USD 81,000 before pulling back toward USD 85,000. That’s down from nearly USD 125,000 last month and brought it back to where it was in April, when markets were shaking because of President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs.(AP) RD RD