HONG KONG: Asian stocks were mostly up Friday tracking Wall Street gains while oil prices also rose on the fragile Iran war ceasefire and ahead of Iran-US ceasefire talks in Pakistan.
South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.8 percent to 5,879.71. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.6 percent to 56,789.58. Shares of Fast Retailing, parent of Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, surged more than 10 percent after the group raised profit expectations for the year.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.7 percent to 25,919.12, while the Shanghai Composite index was 0.6 percent higher at 3,991.14. China on Friday reported that its consumer price index – a main inflation gauge – was up 1 percent in March compared with a year ago, lower than what analysts had expected and down from the 1.3 percent increase in February.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent. Taiwan’s Taiex rose 1.3 percent, while India’s Sensex gained 0.7 percent.
Talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad for a possible permanent ceasefire agreement in the Iran war are expected to take place starting Saturday, with US Vice President JD Vance leading the delegation for the United States.
But ahead of the talks, deadly Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday raised questions whether the two-week ceasefire in the Iran war is still intact, while the Islamic Republic maintained control over the Strait of Hormuz, which is largely closed despite demands from the US to reopen the waterway critical for global oil and gas transport.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had authorized talks with Lebanon, with negotiations said to be expected in Washington next week.
Oil was up modestly on Friday. Brent crude, the international standard, was 0.5 percent higher at $96.42 per barrel. Benchmark US crude was up 0.4 percent to $98.28 a barrel.
For oil prices, “$65-70 a barrel is not coming back,” Ajay Rajadhyaksha of Barclays wrote in a recent research note, referring to the pre-Iran war oil price levels. The bank predicts that Brent crude could remain at around $85 per barrel on average for this year.
“A ceasefire is not a refund,” he wrote. “Ceasefires end wars; they don’t undo them.”
On Thursday, Wall Street gained on hopes of the Iran war ceasefire. The S&P 500 added 0.6 percent to 6,824.66. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6 percent to 48,185.80, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.8 percent to 22,822.42.
Shares of Constellation Brands, which sells Modelo and Corona beers in the US, jumped 8.5 percent following better-than-expected quarterly results. Cloud services provider CoreWeave was 3.5 percent higher after announcing an expanded deal with Meta Platforms through 2032. Meta was up 2.6 percent.
In other dealings, gold and silver prices fell. Gold’s price lost 0.5 percent to $4,791.90 an ounce, while silver prices dropped 0.6 percent to $76.02 per ounce.
The US dollar rose to 159.18 Japanese yen from 158.96 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1694, down from $1.1699.
