Investing.com – Asian stocks traded mostly higher in morning trade on Friday following a third day of gains for U.S. equities.
The Nikkei 225 gained 1.2% by 10:30 AM ET (02:30 GMT). Shares of Japanese conglomerate Sony Corp (T:6758) surged as much as 10% after the company announced a share buyback worth up to 200 billion yen (approx. $1.82 billion). The company also announced a partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) which would allow Sony to use Microsoft’s Azure cloud services for streaming games and media.
South Korea’s KOSPI was up 0.2%.
Down under, Australia’s ASX climbed 0.7%.
Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong shares, however, fell in the morning. The Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component fell 0.2% and 0.1% respectively. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was also down 0.1%.
“Asian markets may attempt to build on yesterday’s positive momentum given that China has not announced any further retaliatory measures to US’ Huawei measure beyond verbal protests. However, we read this as a temporary pause to reassess in the interim rather than green light to be risk-on again,” Singapore’s OCBC Treasury Research analysts wrote in a morning note.
Reports that U.S. Donald Trump is meeting his China counterpart in the G-20 meeting next month and hints from his Trump administration that it may be willing to compromise on trade were cited as a tailwind for stocks today.
Although not a directional driver, CNBC reported citing data from UBS that China sold off its Treasury holdings at the fastest pace in about two years during March.
China’s stockpile of U.S. government notes, bonds and bills fell by $67.2 billion, a 5.6% decline, the CNBC reported, noting that more aggressive action to cutting could further aggravate trade negotiations.
Overnight, U.S stocks climbed on the back of solid earnings and strong housing data. Chinese online search company Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU) underperformed however after the online search company posted a loss for the first time since going public in 2005.