Asian markets rise in hopes of trading, MSCI expansion

Asian stocks were mainly higher on Friday after a report suggested that the leaders of China and the United States could approve a trade agreement over several weeks.

According to Bloomberg, US officials are preparing a final deal before a summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who could take place as soon as mid-March. It cited non-named sources near the case.

Japanese Nikkei 225 Index

NIK, + 1.02%

retrieved 1.1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng

+ 0.54% added 0.4%. Shanghai Composite Index

SHCOMP, + 1[ads1].80%

fell back from early gains, edged only 0.1% higher and Australia's S & P ASX / 200

XJO, + 0.38%

received 0.6%.

Stocks rose in Singapore

STI, + 0.18%

and Indonesia

JAKIDX, -1.26%

but fell in Malaysia

FBMKLCI, -0.49%

. South Korean markets were closed for a holiday.

Among some shares, TDK

6762, + 4.25%

and SoftBank Group

9984, + 1.41%

rose in Tokyo trade. China Life Insurance

2628, + 5.09%

and oil producer CNOOC

0883, + 1.03%

were among the winners in Hong Kong while AAC

2018, + 0.96%

and Sino Biopharmaceutical

2922, [0.2459006] fell -0.29%

. Rio Tinto

R10, -1.29%

and oil search

OSH,

-1.91%

slipped into Australia.

Traders hope that a rate battle of the world's two largest economies will soon be called off if an agreement is reached.

Trump and Xi agreed on a 90-day tariff break in December after increasing the import bills of billions of each other's goods. The US was set to hit China with a new wave of tariffs when the deal expires on Saturday.

Although progress on issues such as Washington's accident over Beijing's technology policy has been slow, Trump said he would postpone tariffs to give countries more time to talk. He didn't say how long.

Buying in Asia was supported by an announcement from MSCI, a leading provider of indexes and analytics. MSCI said it will quadruple the weight of Chinese A shares in its global indices by November. It will also add more Chinese stocks to the Emerging Markets Index, boosting the country's foreign influx.

A private survey also contributed to Chinese growth habits. The purchasing manager's Caixin production index, which measures the growth of the sector, jumped to 49.9 in February, from 48.3 last month. The index is on a 100-point scale, with 50 separating contractions from growth.

This comes after China's official production PMI fell 0.3 points to 49.2 in February, a three-year low.

On Wall Street, the shares were shot Thursday on news that the US economy was delaying at the end of last year, although the result still beats analysts' expectations. The country's gross domestic product expanded to 2.6% annual interest rate in October-December, down from 3.4% in the third quarter. The S&P 500 index

SPX, -0.28%

lost 0.3% to 2,784.49 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average

DJIA, [0.2459006] -0.27%, fell 0.3% to 25.916.00. Nasdaq composite

COMP, -0.29%

cast 0.3% to 7.532.53.

U.S. coarse

CLJ9, + 0.84% ​​

added 23 cents to $ 57.45 per barrel in electronic commerce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It finished 28 cents higher at $ 57.22 a barrel overnight. Burned crude oil

LCOJ9, -0.56%

used to price international oils, received 31 cents to $ 66.62 per barrel. The contract raised 27 cents to $ 66.31 in London.

dollar

USDJPY, + 0.38%

strengthened to 111.71 yen from 111.39 yen on Thursday.

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