It was nice start for Asian stocks on Monday, led by Japan, following end-of-week gains in the U.S. after another solid jobs report.
The Nikkei NIK, +1.34%[1] was up an early 1.2%, helped by declines in the yen; the greenback USDJPY, +0.09%[2] was last around ¥109.70 versus ¥109.08 when Friday’s local stock trading wrapped. Big exporters Toyota 7203, +3.57%[3] and Sony 6758, +2.50%[4] were about 3% higher. Oil names opened lower, with crude distributor JXTG 5020, -0.07%[5] down 0.8% after jumping a combined 4.7% Thursday and Friday while and producer Inpex 1605, -0.57%[6] shedded 2.1% to erase the gains seen during a three-day rebound through Friday. Brent oil LCOQ8, -0.46%[7] retreated 1% Friday and was off a further 0.3% Monday morning
Meanwhile, indexes in South Korea SEU, +0.25%[8] and Australia XJO, +0.51%[9] started with 0.4% advances, with the latter’s benchmark having fallen for three straight weeks. New Zealand’s markets are closed for a holiday.
Singapore stocks also opened solidly higher amid broad optimism in the region after Friday’s post-jobs gains in the U.S. After three straight declines, the Straits Times Index STI, +0.90%[10] was up 0.7% with banks and property stocks early outperformers, rising more than 1%.