Stocks rise ahead of Powell’s Jackson Hole speech
A man looks at an electronic board displaying share information at the Australian Securities Exchange, operated by ASX Ltd. 16 March 2020 in Sydney, Australia.
Brendon Thorne | Getty Images
Shares in the Asia-Pacific rose on Friday as investors look ahead to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell̵[ads1]7;s speech at Jackson Hole later in the state.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.06%, with banks and mining shares higher.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.65% while the Topix added 0.28%. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong rose 0.7%, with the Hang Seng Tech Index up 0.57%.
The Kospi in South Korea rose 0.25% and the Kosdaq fell 0.29%.
Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite ticked fractionally higher, and the Shenzhen component rose 0.124%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.67% higher.
“Hacky comments from a group of Fed speakers overnight carried little weight as markets await Powell’s keynote at Jackson Hole tonight,” Taylor Nugent, an economist at National Australia Bank, wrote in a note on Friday. He noted that Fed spokesmen have said the central bank’s task of fighting inflation is not over and that interest rates must enter restrictive territory.
Overnight, major indices rose in the US. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 322.55 points, or 0.98%, to 33,291.78. The S&P 500 added 1.41% to 4,199.12, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.67% to 12,639.27.
A number of Hong Kong-listed companies will report earnings, including Meituan.
