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Investing.com – Asian stocks were mostly up on Thursday morning, driven by optimism that the global economy is slowly but surely recovering from the impact of COVID-19.
“The main force that’s been driving markets the last few weeks has really been momentum,” Kevin Caron, portfolio manager for Washington Crossing, told Bloomberg.
“We’ve got a market that’s focused on the good case outcome for the virus, we’ve got a market that has taken a great deal of comfort in that fiscal policy is going to be there to support an economy through tough times.”
But gains in the region were capped by the ever-growing number of COVID-19 cases globally, with over 20.5 million cases as of August 13, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Investor sentiment was also muted as the U.S. Congress failed to reach consensus on the latest stimulus measures after a fifth day of negotiations.
Down Under, the ASX 200 was down 0.63%. by 10:52 PM ET (3:52 AM GMT). The Australian Bureau of Statistics said earlier in the day that employment jumped by 114,700 in July with the unemployment rate of 7.5% also beat expectations.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.96%, with Bank of Japan data released earlier in the day showing that the country’s corporate goods price index fell 0.9% in July year-on-year, indicating a slower fall in wholesale prices during the month.
South Korea’s KOSPI gained 0.89%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.05%.
China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.43% while the Shenzhen Component was up 0.41%. The country is due to release a bunch of data for July on Friday, including industrial production and retail sales figures.
Chinese officials are also widely expected to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s ban of the TikTok and WeChat apps during an online meeting with U.S. officials on Saturday. The two sides will also discuss trade, and are expected to bring up other grievances, during the meeting.
