Asian stocks gained on Monday as markets in the region followed Wall Street higher on the back of a rally in US regional banks.
Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index rose 0.8%, while China’s CSI 300 index of shares listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen rose 1%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7%, while Japan’s Topix broke ranks with the rest of the region, shedding 0.3%.
The gains in Asia came after a rebound at the end of last week for US bank stocks, which had previously been hit by fears over the bankruptcy of lender First Republic. The KBW Regional Banking Index rose 4.7% on Friday, while the broader S&P 500 gained 1.9% and the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite gained 2.3%.
But analysts were pessimistic that Asian markets would push higher without improving economic data from China or signs that the US Federal Reserve might start cutting interest rates.
“Overall market sentiment has stabilised, but I really don’t think so [the market] it can break through the hold-and-hold, up-and-down pattern that we’ve seen,” said Dickie Wong, head of research at Kingston Securities. “Wall Street’s gains on Friday were also driven primarily by regional banks, so obviously I don’t see much upside in the near term.”
Futures pushed the S&P 500 down 0.1% as trading began on Wall Street on Monday. The markets in London are closed for a public holiday.
Elsewhere in the markets, Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose 0.1% to $75.36 a barrel, while US marker West Texas Intermediate rose 0.1% to $71.43.
In government bond markets, yields eased slightly as bond prices rose slightly after Friday’s sell-off, with the 10-year US Treasury yield down 0.01 percentage point to 3.424% in Asian trading on Monday.
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