Asia’s stocks went up on Monday, but most markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, and Shanghai’s markets were closed for the whole week.
The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo went up 1.1% to 26,852.85, and the S&P/ASX 200 index in Sydney went up 0.1% to 7,456.90. The gains came after tech stocks went up on Friday, which eased worries about the weakening U.S. economy.
In other trading, the price of U.S. benchmark crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by 35 cents to $81.29 per barrel. On Friday, it went up by $1.03 to $81.64 per barrel.
Brent crude, which is used as a price standard for international trade, went down 40 cents to $87.23 per barrel.
From 129.59 yen, the U.S. dollar dropped to 129.14 yen. It went up from $1.0868 to $1.0905.
The S&P 500 went up 1.9% on Friday, reaching 3,972.61. At 33,375.49, the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up by 1%. The Nasdaq went up 2.7% and ended the day at 11,140.43.
There were also big gains in small company stocks. The Russell 2000 index went up by 1.7% and ended the day at 1,867.34.
Even though the benchmark index went up, it lost for the first time in three weeks.
Most of the gains came from technology and communication services stocks, as investors cheered another big jump in Netflix’s subscribers in the last quarter.
A big part of Friday’s rise in the S&P 500 was because tech stocks went up. Alphabet, the company that owns Google, said it would lay off 12,000 people to save money. Its stock rose 5.3%.
Netflix said that the number of people who signed up for its service went up, and its shares went up 8.5%.
The major indexes started the week in the red, mostly because investors were worried that the economy might not be able to avoid a painful recession. Several reports on the economy have been worse than expected. This is because the Federal Reserve raised interest rates last year, and the full effects are just now starting to be felt.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Friday that he thinks the next interest rate policy update on February 1 should only be a quarter-point increase. Waller also said that interest rates are already high enough to make the economy slow down. The comments could have made the market less worried about interest rates going up.
Info source – CNBC