HONG KONG (AP) โ Asian stocks advanced Monday after U.S. stock indexes hovered near record highs on Friday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 40,000 for the first time.
U.S. futures rose and oil prices rose as investors focused on the Middle East, where a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other officials crashed on Sunday in the mountainous area of โโnorthwestern Iran.
China's market extended last week's gains after the central bank announced new support for the real estate industry, including cutting required down payments for home loans, lowering mortgage interest rates for purchase of first and second homes and the elimination of a mortgage rate floor.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.5% to 19,648.19, and its property index rose 0.6% at midday. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.3% to 3,162.08.
On Monday, China's central bank left the prime rate on one- and five-year loans unchanged at 3.45% and 3.95%, in line with expectations. The one-year LPR serves as a benchmark for most new and outstanding loans in China, while the five-year rate affects the price of real estate mortgages.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 1.4% to 39,346.92. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,862.70. The Kospi in Korea rose 0.6% to 2,741.55.
Elsewhere, Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.1% after Lai Ching-te took office as Taiwan's new president. Lai is expected to defend the island's policy of de facto independence from China and seek to bolster its defenses against Beijing, which claims the island as Chinese territory.
In Bangkok, the SET rose 0.3%.
On Friday, the Dow Jones rose 0.3% to 40,003.59, a day after briefly surpassing the 40,000 level for the first time. It and other Wall Street indexes have been rising since the fall of 2022, as the U.S. economy and corporate profits have managed to hold up despite high inflation, the punishing effects of high interest rates, and concerns about a recession. which seemed inevitable but has not done so. arrive.
The S&P 500, which is the most important index for Wall Street and most retirement savers, added 0.1% to 5,303.27. It finished just 0.1% below its record set on Wednesday and closed out a fourth consecutive week of gains. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.1% to 16,685.97.
In other financial markets, Treasury yields rose.
A report last week revived hopes that inflation is finally heading back in the right direction after a discouraging start to the year. That, in turn, revived hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate at least once this year.
The federal funds rate is at its highest level in more than two decades, and a cut would raise investment prices and remove some of the downward pressure on the economy.
The hope is that the Fed can pull off the balancing act of slowing the economy enough through high interest rates to stamp out high inflation, but not so much that it causes a bad recession.
Of course, with a growing percentage of traders betting that the Federal Reserve will cut rates twice this year, if not more, some economists warn that the optimism may be going too far. It's something that happens often on Wall Street.
While recent data reports have been better than expected, "better than expected does not mean good," Bank of America economists wrote in a BofA Global Research report.
Inflation remains higher than the Fed would like, and Bank of America's Michael Gapen still expects the Fed to hold its key interest rate steady until it cuts it in December.
In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.41% from 4.38% late Thursday.
In other trading on Monday, benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 3 cents to $79.61 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added 10 cents to $84.08 a barrel.
The US dollar rose to 155.79 Japanese yen from 155.55 yen. The euro rose to $1.0877 from $1.0871.
