Wall Street rose and the dollar broke a six-day losing streak on positive economic news stateside ahead of Asia’s Thursday trading day. Meanwhile, markets in the region will keep an eye on Caixin’s China services and composite PMI later in the morning after the Caixin manufacturing PMI beat estimates and the country’s official PMI met expectations.
U.S. stocks closed higher in the last session, with the S&P 500 closing above 2,700 for the first time as technology stocks notched more gains. Semiconductor names led the sector higher, with AMD jumping 5.19 percent and Nvidia soaring 6.58 percent on the day.
The Dow Jones industrial average advanced 0.4 percent, or 98.67 points, to close at 24,922.68, the S&P 500 gained 0.64 percent to finish at 2,713.06 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite closed up 0.84 percent at 7,065.53.
On the data front, manufacturing activity stateside topped expectations, with the ISM manufacturing index for December released Wednesday coming in at 59.7.
Investors also digested minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting in December, which showed that most members thought upcoming changes in taxes would lead to higher real GDP growth. The minutes also showed members of the Federal Open Market Committee were somewhat at odds over meeting the central bank’s inflation target of 2 percent.
Elsewhere, European markets ended higher as new financial sector rules under Mifid ll came into effect, with the pan-European Stoxxx 600 closing nearly 0.5 percent higher.
