Beijing, China (BBN)-Asian shares headed higher on Wednesday, getting a strong lead from Wall Street where rising oil prices led to a rebound in the market.
The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones indexes both gained over 1 per cent as oil prices rallied overnight to climb by around 3 per cent after Monday’s declines, reports BBC.
Encouraging economic data such as housing and consumer confidence in the US also boosted investor sentiment.
Japan’s Nikkei was up 0.6 per cent to 19,097.14 in the year’s final trading day.
Japanese markets will be closed on Thursday for a public holiday.
REST OF ASIA
In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.7 per cent to 5,304.20, leading the gains in the region.
But commodity shares still weighed on the market with shares of mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto down 0.9 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively.
Chinese shares were barely unchanged with the Shanghai Composite trading flat at 3,565.77, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.1 per cent to 22,016.92.
South Korea’s Kospi index was higher by 0.1 per cent to 1,967.60 points.
Investors ignored data that showed industrial production saw its worst decline in 10 months in November on slumping global demand for exports.
Factory output fell a seasonally adjusted 2.1 per cent from a month earlier, according to Statistics Korea.
BBN/SK/AD