Almost all of the stocks in Asia finished Friday’s session on the positive note following the withdrawal of U.S. President Donald Trump from the Paris climate agreement and the release of strong U.S. private payrolls data.
Japanese benchmark Nikkei 225 rose as much as 1.7 percent. Across the Korean Strait, Kospi index inched higher by 0.85 percent as markets endured the revision of the first quarter gross domestic product (GDP). This mirrored the economy advanced by 2.9 percent, better than the expected 2.7 percent.
On the Down Under, the ASX 200 was 0.92 percent higher, with materials adding 1.08 percent and financials sub-indexes gaining 1.1 percent. Shares from major miners surged as much as 1 percent, while financial stocks also finished the day higher.
Meanwhile Chinese markets were mostly down. The Shenzhen Composite lost 0.636 percent, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.26 percent, but Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong gained 0.33 percent. People’s Bank in the nation set the reference point for the yuan at 6.8070 to the greenback.
Auto stocks in Japan were also on the positive territory after the auto sales in the United States for May reflected that Honda and Nissan announced an increase in sales on year. Honda added more than 2.35 percent; Nissan advanced 1.82 percent, while Toyota was 1.34 percent higher.
In Hong Kong, gaming stocks were also on the trend. This was later followed by the news that casino’s in Macau jumped as capital controls and on-going anti-corruption took place in China. Sands China, Wynn Macau and Melco International Development all rose by 0.79 percent, 0.87 percent and 1.09 percent respectively.