SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific rose in Friday morning trade, with investors monitoring shares of Alibaba in Hong Kong after the Chinese tech giant posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan gained 1.41% as shares of conglomerate SoftBank Group surged 5%. The Topix index advanced 1.08%. South Korea’s Kospi also jumped 1.22%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.73%. Australia’s April retail sales data is set to be out at 9:30 a.m. HK/SIN on Friday.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.49% higher.
Chinese tech titan Alibaba reported Thursday fourth-quarter earnings of 7.95 yuan ($1.18) per share, excluding items, on revenues of 204.05 billion yuan ($30.28 billion). That was higher than analyst expectations for earnings of 7.31 yuan a share on CNY199.25 billion in revenue, according to StreetAccount.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 jumped 1.99% to 4,057.84. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 516.91 points, or 1.61%, to 32,637.19. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite outperformed as it rose 2.68% to 11,740.65.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 101.717 — off levels above 102.2 seen earlier in the week.
The Japanese yen traded at 126.98 per dollar, still stronger than levels above 127.8 seen against the greenback earlier this week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7099, holding above the $0.705 level that it momentarily fell below earlier in the week.
Oil prices were lower in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures dipping around 0.1% to $117.30 per barrel. U.S. crude futures traded 0.15% lower at $113.92 per barrel.
— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.