South Korea’s Kospi led gains in Asia-Pacific markets on Friday after Wall Street rebounded from the sell-off earlier this week, but China’s CSI 300 hit a new five-year low.
South Korea’s consumer price index climbed 2.8% year on year, slightly less than the 2.9% expected in a Reuters poll of economists.
The Kospi rose 2.87% to close at 2,615.31 and posted a weekly gain of 5.47%, while the small-cap Kosdaq climbed 2.01% to 814.77.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.47% to 7,699.4, after its fourth-quarter producer price index rose at a faster pace of 4.1% year on year, compared with 3.8% in the preceding quarter. The index gained 1.91% compared to last week.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 also rebounded 0.41%, ending at 36,158.02 and gaining 0.96% on the week, while the broad based Topix climbed 0.22% to end at 2,539.68.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.24%, while the mainland CSI 300 tumbled 1.18% to 3,179.63, hitting its lowest level since January 2019.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.97% to set a fresh record close for the blue-chip index, which also wiped its losses from a day earlier triggered by Chairman Jerome Powell signaling the U.S. Federal Reserve was unlikely to cut rates in March.
The S&P 500 added 1.25%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.3%.
