Asian stock markets are mostly higher on Friday following the record highs overnight on Wall Street amid optimism over the likely signing of a phase one U.S.-China trade deal in January and as online retail giant Amazon.com said the holiday season was “record-breaking”.
The Australian market, which resumed trading after a two-day holiday, is modestly higher following the record highs on Wall Street. Mainland Chinese stocks gave up early gains by the afternoon, with the Shanghai composite up 0.2% while the Shenzhen component lost 0.1%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was lower by 0.4% as shares of index heavyweight Fast Retailing fell over 2% while the Topix index added 0.1%.
Both oil and gold held on to their recent gains. Brent crude, the global benchmark, extended gains into a fourth session, hitting $68.09 per barrel, the highest since mid-September. The rally in oil and gold boosted commodity-linked currencies in the past 24 hours with the New Zealand dollar up 0.6% and the Australian dollar up 0.3%.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was last at 97.435 after seeing earlier highs above 97.6 yesterday.