TOKYO — Asian shares rose broadly on Thursday after the latest update on US inflation came in almost as economists had expected, and data on The Japanese economy showed relatively healthy growth.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.0% to 36,808.75 in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3% to 7,871.90. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5% to 17,198.86, while the Shanghai Composite rose 1.0% to 2,879.03. Trading in South Korea was closed for Liberation Day, a national holiday.
Figures from Japan’s Ministry of the Interior showed the world’s fourth-largest economy grew at an annual rate of 3.1% in the April-June period, a recovery from the previous quarter’s contraction.
The annual rate indicates how much the economy would have grown or shrunk if the quarterly rate had remained the same for a year.
Domestic demand grew by a robust 3.5% from the previous quarter, driven by healthy household consumption and private sector investment, as well as government investment. Exports grew by a buoyant 5.9%.
A key element of uncertainty, which has recently focused on exchange rate fluctuations and interest rates, has now turned to the political sector as Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party elects a new leader after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced he will not seek re-election.
While the next prime minister is widely expected to be another Liberal Democrat, suggesting continuity in Japan’s core pro-US, pro-business policies, there is no clear successor in the pipeline. Some analysts believe a younger candidate would have a better chance of winning over voters who plummeted under Kishida.
On Wall Street, the S&The P 500 rose 0.4% to follow one of its best days of the year and climbed within 3.7% of its all-time high reached last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 242 points, or 0.6%, to end a day above the 40,000 level for the first time in nearly two weeks. The Nasdaq Composite rose less than 0.1%.
In the bond market, too, Treasury yields remained relatively stable after the U.S. government reported that consumers paid 2.9% higher prices for gasoline, food, housing and other items last month than a year earlier.
The data must be retained the Federal Reserve on track to cut key interest rates at its next meeting in September, after the ECB kept rates at economically deteriorating levels in hopes of curbing inflation.
The two-year Treasury yield rose slightly to 3.95% from 3.94% Tuesday night. Overall, the S&The P 500 rose 20.78 points to 5,455.21. The Dow rose 242.75 points to 40,008.39 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 4.99 points to 17,192.60.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude rose 28 cents to $77.26 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 26 cents to $80.02 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 147.46 Japanese yen from 147.22 yen. The euro was worth $1.1011, down slightly from $1.1016.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed. Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama