Asian stocks remain mostly positive despite holiday at China, cautious mood ahead of US NFP

Asian markets are on their way to post another weekly positive closing as investors cheer the news reports favoring that the US and China are close to the much-awaited trade deal. However, holiday at China and Hong Kong, coupled with cautious trading sentiment ahead of the US monthly employment data, curbed the equity rally in Asia.

MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares ex-Japan was gaining 0.1% by the press time. The gauge is nearly 2.0% positive on a weekly basis, not to mention 13% year to date gains so far in 2019.

Japan’s Nikkei gained +0.3% but Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index lost 0.8%. Further, little changes were noted for South Korea’s Kospi and India’s Sensex while S&P 500 futures hit the session high. It should also be noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index gained 0.64% overnight with Nasdaq losing 0.05%.

Latest reports from Xinhua suggest that China’s President Xi Jinping praised the progress made by both the sides, namely the US and China, and called for an early conclusion of negotiations.

The US 10-Year Treasury yield is nearly in 2 basis points of gain to 2.53% on a daily closing basis. However, the risk barometer is well above the 2.35% low marked during last week.

While the absence of Chinese players is something that’s affecting the trade response, the March month employment details from the US is another reason for the lack of market movement as the jobs report was a disappointment during its February release.

Forecast suggest an improvement to non-farm payrolls figure of 20K to 180K but lack of consensus prevail when talking about a change in other employment data, namely the average hourly earnings (YoY) at 3.4% and an unemployment rate of 3.8%.