Asian stock markets showed a mixed performance on Tuesday, echoing the fluctuating trends noticed on Wall Street earlier. Despite some major markets in the region remaining closed due to public holidays, markets in Japan and South Korea experienced a boost. Investors around the globe are adopting a cautiously optimistic attitude as they await the release of US consumer price inflation data for January. This information will likely play a significant role in predicting future shifts in the interest rates.
Australian stocks managed to partly bounce back from previous losses, albeit maintaining a choppy trading pattern on Tuesday. Prompted by varied cues from Wall Street and the slightly underwhelming corporate earnings news, the Australian stock market saw a small surge. Mining and financial stocks, in particular, have demonstrated growth, thus pushing the S&P/ASX 200 benchmark index above the 7,600 mark.
Major mining corporations such as BHP Group and Rio Tinto have exhibited a slight incline of about 0.3 to 0.4 percent each. Other mining bodies like Mineral Resources also noted over a 1 percent growth. Similarly, oil stocks displayed a mixed trend, with energy firms like Origin Energy and Beach Energy gaining almost 1 percent and over 2 percent respectively.
Tech stocks, gold miners as well as big banking corporations mainly witnessed an upward growth line. Significant tech companies like Afterpay owner Block and Appen reported gaining over 3 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. While major gold miners like Evolution Mining, Resolute Mining and Northern Star Resources gained over 1 percent each.
In the banking sector, Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank noted close to a 1 percent increase each, while ANZ Banking marked over 1 percent growth which was closely trailed by Westpac with 0.5 percent growth.
However, markets were also rocked by a few downturns. Seek, a major job listing site, saw its shares plummet nearly 10 percent following the company posting a decline in profit as customer volumes reverted to pre-pandemic levels. Breville shares also plummeted by almost 13 percent despite announcing a profit increase of 6.7 percent.
Seven West Media reported a fall of over 9 percent triggered by a 53 percent decline in TV advertising revenue. Also, shares in Strike Energy drastically fell by more than 26 percent after their South Erregulla-3 site in the Perth Basin failed to yield predicted results.
In stark contrast, the online-only furniture retailer Temple & Webster saw a near 12 percent climb in their shares after a 23 percent increase in revenue backed by new and repeat customers.
Japanese stocks, too, surged noticeably after a public holiday break. Nikkei 225, the leading index, added 900 points pushing it slightly below the 37,800 level, the highest in 34 years. The gain was powered by the overall performance of most sectors, predominantly index heavyweights, exporters and technology stocks. The Aussie dollar was also seen trading at $0.652 on Tuesday.In a contrasting scenario, JGC Holdings is experiencing a significant drop of nearly 19%, while Nippon Paper Industries is seeing a similarly steep decline of almost 14%. In the automotive sector, Mazda Motor has taken a hit of more than 8%. Healthcare company Otsuka Holdings and mobile platform provider DeNA are also witnessing drops of 7% and 6% respectively. Moreover, Sumitomo Realty & Development is down by over 4%. Notably, Olympus and Kobe Steel are similarly impacted with nearly 4% declines each. Mitsubishi Materials is down by over 3%, whereas Oji Holdings and Sumco are recording a fall of almost 3% each.
At present, in the foreign exchange market, the US dollar is trading in the lower band of 149 yen on this Tuesday.
Shifting our gaze to other Asian markets, South Korea is up by 1.2% whereas Singapore and Malaysia are witnessing growths of 0.2% and 0.5% respectively. Contrastingly, New Zealand and Indonesia are down by 0.5% and 0.8% respectively. Markets in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are presently closed due to the Lunar New Year holidays.
On Wall Street, a lack of consistent direction was observed throughout the session, resulting in a closely mixed final close. It appeared that the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were on track to reach new record closing highs but dipped into negative territory during afternoon trading. The Nasdaq fell by 48.12 points or 0.3% to settle at 15,942.55, and the S&P 500 decreased by 4.77 points or 0.1% to end at 5,021.84. However, the Dow Jones rose by 125.69 points or 0.3% to close at a record high of 38,797.38.
Elsewhere, major European markets demonstrated positive trends. Both the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index climbed by 0.7% and 0.6% respectively, while the UK's FTSE 100 Index closed slightly above the unchanged line.
In the energy sector, crude oil futures settled nearly flat on Monday, as concerns about demand outweighed potential supply disruptions. The recovery of the US dollar from lower levels also put pressure on prices. The West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March were finalized at $76.92 a barrel, a modest increment of $0.08 from the previous close.
