Stocks in Australia traded higher on Thursday morning following a mostly higher finish on Wall Street as the U.S. nears the Thanksgiving holiday.
The benchmark ASX 200 rose 0.63 percent in early trade, with most sectors in positive territory.
The heavily weighted financial subindex advanced 0.43 percent, with shares of Australia’s so-called Big Four banks mostly seeing gains. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group rose 0.63 percent, Commonwealth Bank of Australia gained 0.5 percent and National Australia Bank advanced 0.83 percent. Westpac, however, saw fractional losses in the morning.
Meanwhile, the futures market pointed to a higher open for Japan’s Nikkei 225. The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 21,655 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 21,690. The index last closed at 21,507.54.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed largely flat at 21,464.69 while the S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent to 2,649.93. The Nasdaq Composite also advanced 0.9 percent to close at 6,972.25.
To be sure, Wednesday’s moves came on a day with very low trading volume as most of Wall Street was away for the Thanksgiving holiday. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500, traded just over 71 million shares, well below its 30-day average volume of 130.3 million.
“Markets experienced a better night last night, but it is fair to say that sentiment remains fragile,” Daniel Gradwell from ANZ Research wrote in a morning note. “There seems a greater appreciation that with the impact of US fiscal stimulus waning, the US economy could slow like other major economies have. That leaves the market less forgiving of poor news.”
Volatility is expected to persist unless there’s a turnaround in global growth prospects, Gradwell added.
Oil prices saw a recovery on Wednesday after plunging earlier in the week.
The global benchmark Brent crude futures was up 81 cents, or 1.3 percent, at $63.34 per barrel at 2:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. Brent fell to a low going back to December 2017 in the previous session.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude ended Wednesday’s session $1.20, or 2.3 percent higher, at $54.63. WTI hit its lowest price level since October 2017 on Tuesday.
U.S. crude stocks rose 4.9 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said, a larger-than-expected increase. Crude inventories have risen for nine straight weeks, the longest streak of increases since March 2017.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 96.715 after seeing earlier highs above 96.8.
The Japanese yen was at 113.08 against the dollar after weakening from around the 112.7 handle yesterday. The Australian dollar traded at $0.726 after rising from levels around $0.72 in the previous session.
— Reuters and CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.
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