Japan stocks lead gains in Asia after Wall Street rallies on easing recession fears

Japan stocks led gains in Asia on Friday and were set for their best week in four years, with both the Nikkei 225 and Topix up over 2%, after Wall Street rallied overnight as fresh economic data eased recessionary fears.

U.S. retail sales increased 1% in July, far surpassing Dow Jones estimate of a 0.3% uptick. Weekly jobless claims also fell for the week.

“Today’s solid retail sales and claims data is a reminder that the sky is not falling on the U.S. economy,” Wolfe Research chief economist Stephanie Roth wrote on Thursday. “Yes, economic momentum has cooled, but we don’t appear to be headed for recession imminently.”

Traders in Asia assessed revised trade data from South Korea and exports data from Singapore. Taiwan and Hong Kong’s second-quarter GDP data will be out after market hours.

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports in July grew 15.7% year on year, having declined 8.8% in June and massively beating Reuters poll expectations of a 1.2% growth.

Total trade grew by 13.7% in July 2024, building on the 1.2% increase in June, as both exports and imports increased.

South Korea’s Kospi returned from a public holiday to trade 1.8% higher, while the small-cap Kosdaq climbed 1.13%.

The country’s revised trade data for July remained unchanged from its preliminary figures, with exports growing 13.9% to $57.5 billion and imports climbing 10.5% to $53.9 billion.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 saw a smaller gain of 1.3%. On Friday, Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michelle Bullock said while markets had brought forward their expectations of a rate cut following inflation outcomes in the U.S. and Australia, it was still “premature” to think about rate cuts.

She pointed out that inflation is still “too high” and is not expected to be back in the top of the RBA’s target band of 2% to 3% until the end of next year.

“Circumstances may change, of course, and the outlook is uncertain. But based on what the Board knows at present, it does not expect that it will be in a position to cut rates in the near term.”

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.09%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 was up 0.15%