By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were mostly up on Thursday morning. U.S. equity futures also rose, and investor sentiment improved, as China pledged further economic support.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.62% by 10:26 PM ET (2:26 AM GMT), with industrial production increasing 0.3% month-on-month and retail sales rising 0.9% year-on-year in March 2022.
South Korea’s KOSPI was up 0.45%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.92%, with the country also releasing retail sales figures earlier in the day.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.51%.
China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.49% while the Shenzhen Component fell 0.95%.
In the U.S., contracts for the Nasdaq 100 climbed 1% and those for the S&P 500 also rose. Treasury yields fell, with investors also balancing risks from high inflation and potentially aggressive U.S. Federal Reserve policy tightening.
Chinese stocks traded in the U.S. also rose to their highest level since early April 2022, after China’s State Council pledged at its latest meeting to stabilize employment. The meeting, chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, said more forceful policy measures should be taken to boost jobs, according to CCTV. Li added that stabilizing employment is a “key support” to keeping economic growth within a proper range.
The pledge follows that of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs to step up infrastructure construction at Tuesday's meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.
Market volatility remains over China’s struggles with its latest COVID-19 outbreak, the ongoing war in Ukraine precipitated by the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, and mounting worries that Fed tightening could lead to a recession.
“The uncertainty factor is some of the highest we’ve seen in the course of the last number of years,” BlackRock global allocation team head of thematic strategy Kate Moore told Bloomberg.
“There are so many crosscurrents. And against that backdrop, it’s hard to see volatility come down dramatically.”
However, there are hopes that robust U.S. corporate earnings could improve investor sentiment. Meta shares surged 18% in extended trading, with Facebook’s main social network adding more users than projected.
Earnings from companies including Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and U.S. data including the GDP for the first quarter of 2022, are due later in the day.
In Asia Pacific, the Bank of Japan will also hand down its monetary policy later in the day. The central bank is expected to keep its main monetary settings steady, even as the yen’s rapid weakening to a two-decade low fuels market speculation about a possible adjustment to policy or messaging.
The European Central Bank publishes its economic bulletin later in the day as well.
In commodities, oil was near the $102 mark. The black liquid is struggling to chart its course amid Germany’s support for a gradual ban on Russian crude and fuel demand concerns over China’s COVID-19 lockdowns.