By Chibuike Oguh
Aug 20 (Reuters) - Asian equities were poised to rise on
Friday after a tech-driven rally on Wall Street in which the
Nasdaq hit a record high despite downbeat data that affirmed the
Fed's dour outlook on U.S. economic recovery.
Markets had opened lower after data showed an unexpected
rise of more than 1 million in new U.S. claims for unemployment
assistance, which reinforced the Fed's warning on Wednesday
about the slackening of the labor market as coronavirus cases
rise.
But gains in Apple Inc AAPL.O , Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O and
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O underpinned a rally in Wall Street's
three main indexes as investors bet the tech giants would ride
out the economic crisis.
"It was another great day for tech stocks, continuing this
trend that companies doing well are those driving innovation or
whose businesses haven't been disrupted by the shutdown," said
Mitch Rubin, chief investment officer at RiverPark Funds.
"But there's still this tug of war going on that tech
leadership is overdone."
Australian S&P/ASX 200 futures YAPcm1 rose 0.17%, Japan's
Nikkei 225 futures NKc1 added 0.13%, while Hong Kong's Hang
Seng index futures .HSI HSIc1 rose 0.71%.
A sudden bearishness had fallen on investors on Wednesday,
with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closing lower, after minutes from
the Fed's latest policy meeting gave a somber assessment of the
U.S. economy as it grapples with the pandemic. The Fed has ruled
out, for now, more dovish easing policy measures. That pessimism was reinforced in early trading on Thursday
as new U.S. jobless claims data came in well above the forecast
of economists polled by Reuters that expected 925,000 new
applications in the latest week. But U.S. tech stocks defied the downbeat mood and extended
their upward streak. Tech-heavy Nasdaq clocked its 19th record
closing high since early June, when it confirmed its recovery
from the coronavirus sell-off. Thursday's record close was its
35th so far this year compared with 31 record closing highs in
2019 and 29 in 2018.
The benchmark S&P 500 index also completed its fastest
recovery from a bear market this week, joining the Nasdaq in
scaling new peaks despite signs that other parts of the U.S.
economy are still far away from pre-pandemic levels. A bull
market has now been confirmed for the S&P 500.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
0.17%, the S&P 500 .SPX rose 0.32%, and the Nasdaq Composite
gained 1.06%.
Gold prices rebounded overnight and after the U.S. jobless
data on demand for the safe-haven asset. Spot gold XAU= added 0.8% to $1,945.61 an ounce. U.S. gold
futures GCv1 settled down 1.2% to $1,946.50 an ounce.
Oil prices fell about 1%, meanwhile, as concerns mounted
about excess crude supplies. The decline came after Reuters
reported that some members of the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries and its allies, known an OPEC+, would need
to cut output by an extra 2.31 million barrels per day (bpd) to
make up for recent oversupply.
OPEC+ had said on Wednesday the oil market recovery appeared
to be slower than anticipated with growing risks of a prolonged
second wave of the pandemic. U.S. crude futures settled down 0.8% at $42.58 per barrel.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 settled at $44.90 per barrel, down
1%.
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