SINGAPORE – Asia-Pacific equities boosted trading on Friday, with investors monitoring Alibaba shares in Hong Kong after Chinese technology giant posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter gains on Thursday.
On Friday afternoon in Hong Kong, Alibaba shares listed in the city rose 12.45% after Thursday reported fourth-quarter earnings of 7.95 yuan ($ 1.18) per share , excluding items, with revenue of 204.05 million yuan ($ 30.28 million).
This exceeded analysts’ expectations of a gain of 7.31 yuan per share with a revenue of CNY 199.25 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Other Chinese technology stocks in the city also gained significant gains, with Tencent up 2.33% while Netease rose 3.53%. The broadest Hang Seng index in Hong Kong rose 2.77%.
Shares in mainland China also rose, with Shanghai Composite up 0.52% and Shenzhen Component up 0.449%.
Chinese authorities held an unprecedented national meeting by teleconference on Wednesday to try to boost an economy battered by Covid, with Prime Minister Li Keqiang warning of difficulties “even greater than the severe pandemic shock in 2020”.
“The first Li directive for premises [officials] to better balance COVID’s controls with economic growth, which has been cited as key to solving all problems, (from employment to COVID’s livelihood and containment), paves the way for a turnaround promising, “said Vishnu Varathan of Mizuho Bank in a note on Friday.
“The problem is that this is an attempt to alleviate the pain, but not a panacea for self-inflicted harm,” said Vishnu, head of economics and strategy at the company.
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The Nikkei 225 in Japan gained 0.56%, as shares of the SoftBank Group conglomerate rose 4.49%. The Topix index rose 0.44%. Kospi in South Korea also rose 0.87%.
In Australia, the S & P / ASX 200 was up 1%. Australia’s retail sales rose 0.9% in April to “another record high”, according to a press release from the country’s Statistics Office on Friday.
Following the release of the data, the Australian dollar changed hands at $ 0.7139, continuing to stay above the $ 0.705 level that momentarily fell below earlier in the week.
MSCI’s broadest Asia-Pacific stock index outside of Japan rose 1.92%.
Coins and oils
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the green dollar against a basket of its peers, was at 101,519, above the 102.2 levels seen earlier in the week.
The Japanese yen was trading at $ 126.81, even stronger than levels above the 127.8 seen against the green dollar earlier this week.
Oil prices rose in the afternoon on the Asian schedule, and Brent crude oil international benchmark futures rose 0.13% to $ 117.55 a barrel. U.S. crude oil futures rose 0.07% to $ 114.17 a barrel.
– CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.