FXStreet (Mumbai) – Asian stocks advanced on Friday and appear poised to end the week with moderate gains, although concerns regarding the slowdown in the Asian and EM economies continue to weigh over the investor sentiment.
The iShares MSCI Pacific ex Japan advanced 0.5%. The index is likely to close the week with 1% gain. The Japanese benchmark index Nikkei shed 0.36% as the Yen is increasingly tilting towards the bullish side against the USD offlate. Hang Seng strengthened more than 2%. Chinese markets will remain shut until Oct. 8 for the National Golden Week holidays.
Thursday’s private and official surveys of China’s factory sector were slightly better than expected, however, it is too early to say that the factory output bottomed out in September. Moreover, the indices were still well below 50.00 – contraction territory.
The investors in Asia and across the globe now await the US nonfarm payrolls, due later in the US session, which is expected to show that employers added 203,000 jobs in September.
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)