Asian shares advance after Wall St rallies to its best day in months, and China reports strong data

Independent

17-03-2025

Shares advanced Monday in Asia after U.S. stocks rallied to their best day since November's election and China reported stronger than expected factory data.
Chinese officials were due later in the day to brief reporters about Beijing's efforts to get consumers to spend more. Economists say consumers must spend more to get the economy out of its doldrums, although most have advocated broader, more fundamental reforms to foster greater confidence and build their spending power.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.3% to 24,276.64, and the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.6% at 3,429.30.
China's industrial output rose nearly 6% in the first two months of the year from a year earlier and retail sales were up 4%, the government reported Monday. But officials reported continued weakness in the property market, with home prices falling and investment in real estate down nearly 10% from a year earlier.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.3% to 37,539.36, while the Kospi in Seoul leaped 1.7% to 2,608.68.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,838.20 and the Taiex in Taiwan was up 0.9%. Bangkok 's SET bucked the trend, falling 0.7%.
On Friday, Wall Stree t's roller coaster shot back upward, but not enough to keep the U.S. market from a fourth straight losing week, its longest such streak since August.
The S&P 500 jumped 2.1% a day after closing more than 10% below its record for its first ' correction ' since 2023. It closed at 5,638.94.
The U.S. stock market has been tumbling quickly since setting a record less than a month ago. The last time the index shot up that much was the day after President Donald Trump's election, when Wall Street was focusing on the upsides of Trump's return to the White House.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.7%, to 41,488.19. The Nasdaq composite jumped 2.6% to 17,754.09.
Ulta Beauty jumped 13.7% after the beauty products retailer reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Gains for Big Tech stocks and companies in the artificial-intelligence industry also helped support the market. Such stocks have been under the most pressure in the recent sell-off after critics said their prices shot too high in the frenzy around AI.
Nvidia rose 5.3% to trim its loss for 2025 so far below 10%. Apple climbed 1.8% to pare its loss for the week, which at one point had been on pace to be its worst since the 2020 COVID crash.
It helped that the Senate made moves to prevent a possible partial shutdown of the U.S. government.
But the heaviest uncertainty remains with Trump's escalating trade war. There, the question is how much pain Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies in order to reshape the country and world as he wants. The president has said he wants manufacturing jobs back in the United States, along with a smaller U.S. government workforce and other fundamental changes.
While stock prices may be close to finishing their reset to account for tariffs set to hit in April, Ma said concerns about how big an impact cutbacks in federal spending will have on the economy are 'likely to remain for some time.'
U.S. households and businesses have already reported drops in confidence because of all the uncertainties created by Trump's barrage of on -again, off -again tariff announcements and other policies. That's raised fears about a pullback in spending that could sap energy from the economy.
Worries look to be only worsening among U.S. households, according to a preliminary survey released Friday by the University of Michigan. Its measure of consumer sentiment sank for a third straight month, mostly because of concerns about the future rather than complaints about the present. The job market and overall economy look relatively solid at the moment.
In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 48 cents to $67.66 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international standard, added 49 cents to $71.07 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 148.93 Japanese yen from 148.81 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0880 from $1.0882.