Asia-Pacific shares traded higher on Thursday following the rally on Wall Street and as investors move on from the tensions over U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped more 2% earlier in the session and was up 1.76% in the final hour of trade.
The Hang Seng Tech index rose 2.82%, with shares of Alibaba popping more than 4% ahead of its earnings results later Thursday.
The Chinese e-commerce giant could see revenue decline for the first time on record, according to analysts’ average forecast on Refinitiv. But that could be the floor for Alibaba as revenue is expected to improve going forward.
Meituan shares also rose around 3.44%, while JD.com gained 5.15%.
Pelosi met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday amid warnings from Beijing. Pelosi has since left the self-ruled island that China views as a runaway province to continue with her Asia tour.
Historically, markets tend to move on quite quickly from events such as these, and you can see that today the markets have already started to rebound quite strongly.
Mainland China markets fell for two straight sessions, but rose slightly on Thursday. The Shanghai Composite added 0.8% to 3,189.04 and the Shenzhen Component climbed 0.69% higher to close at 12,065.22.
“Historically, markets tend to move on quite quickly from events such as these, and you can see that today the markets have already started to rebound quite strongly,” Vey-Sern Ling, a managing director at UBP, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Thursday.
Despite geopolitical risks, delisting concerns in the U.S. and potential Covid flare ups, there are many catalysts in the China market, Ling said. He pointed to well-controlled inflation and possible consumption recovery as examples.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.69% to 27,932.2, while the Topix index was about flat at 1,930.73.
Toyota shares dropped 2.99% after reporting a fall in operating profit for the April-to-June quarter.
The Kospi in South Korea gained 0.47% to 2,473.11 and the Kosdaq advanced 1.2% to 825.16.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was fractionally lower at 6,974.9.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of China was 0.52% higher.
Santoli: Strengthening case against a recession pushing S&P 500 to highest levels since early June
There’s a new favorite stock among retail traders — and it’s linked to Warren Buffett
Goldman says buy this ground-breaking biotech stock poised to rally 75% from here
DBS, Singapore’s largest bank, reported a net profit of 1.82 billion Singapore dollars ($1.32 billion), the second highest in history, the bank said in a press release. That’s higher than the average forecast of 1.7 billion Singapore dollars, according to data from Refinitiv.
The bank’s shares were about flat in late afternoon trade, while the wider index was advanced 0.4%.
The world’s largest battery maker, CATL, will continue working toward delivering lower-cost lithium iron batteries to Ford Motor. CATL will also produce batteries in North America by 2026, the Wednesday report said.
CATL was delaying its decision on a North America plant.
CATL shares slipped 0.62% on Thursday.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 each gained more than 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.59%, pulled higher by tech stocks.
A better-than-expected services PMI reading for July gave investors confidence amid concerns about a U.S. recession.