By Doris Yu
Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were up Friday morning after a U.S. $579 billion infrastructure deal boosted investors’ optimism while the U.S. share hit a record.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.68% by 10:19 PM ET (2:19 AM GMT). The Tokyo Core Consumer Price Index was 0.0% in June, but above 0.1% contraction in forecasts prepared by investing.com and 0.2% contraction in the same month a year before.
South Korea’s KOSPI jumped 0.76%. In Australia, the ASX 200 rose 0.38%
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index increased 0.57%. China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.21% while the Shenzhen Component rose 0.56%
The benchmark S&P 500 reached new peaks, while the dollar held a retreat and the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields were little changed at 1.49%.
U.S. President Joe Biden struck a bipartisan $579 billion infrastructure deal on Thursday, which aims to create millions of jobs. The move is expected to move through congress alongside a separate bill that would spend trillions more on what Biden called “human infrastructure” that the Republican party opposes.
The group of senators “has come together to forge an agreement that will create millions of American jobs and modernize our American infrastructure,” Biden added.
An MSCI Inc. gauge of global stocks is expected to record its best week since April, thanks to the continuous economic recovery from COVID-19. Investors remain optimistic despite risks such as higher inflation, the prospect of tightening monetary policy, and more infectious COVID-19 variants.
“Infrastructure spending strengthens an already very strong economic growth outlook,” LPL Financial (NASDAQ:LPLA) equity strategist Jeff Buchbinder told Bloomberg. Those investments will “bolster the outlook for corporate profits and should keep this bull market going strong well beyond 2021.”
On the central bank front, Mexico’s central bank unexpectedly increased its interest rates for the first time since late 2018, while the Bank of England warned against “premature tightening” as the economy still needs support to recover from COVID-19.
On the data side, 411,000 filed for initial jobless claims in the U.S. during the previous week, above the 380,000 figure in forecasts prepared by investing.com but slightly below the 418,000 during the previous week.
Investors now await data on personal spending and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment, due later in the day.