SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian equities got some welcome relief on Wednesday after upbeat U.S. earnings reports drove a rebound on Wall Street and helped restore a little faith in emerging market stocks and currencies.
Japan’s Nikkei galloped out of the gates with a rise of 1.7 percent, but still has a long way to go to recoup the past week’s losses.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.7 percent and South Korea 1.2 percent. Chinese blue chips, however, lagged with a gain of only 0.2 percent.
U.S. stocks had jumped more than 2 percent on Tuesday in reaction to upbeat earnings reports from major companies including UnitedHealth and Goldman Sachs.
“Analysts are looking at this reporting season in particular and the general data over the next couple of months for signs that the receding tailwinds of fiscal stimulus and the headwinds of tariffs are going to hit the U.S. market simultaneously,” said Rakuten Securities Australia COO, Nick Twidale.
“On first viewing this doesn’t appear to be happening.”
On Wall Street, the three major indexes tallied their biggest one-day percentage gains since March. The Dow jumped 2.17 percent, while the S&P 500 climbed 2.15 percent and the Nasdaq 2.89 percent. [.N]
Netflix Inc shot 12 percent higher after the close as its results far outstripped market expectations with 7 million streaming customers added.
The blockbuster outcome sent shares of Alphabet Inc, Facebook Inc and Amazon.com Inc up about 1 percent in extended trade.
The four make up the so-called FANG group of high-growth companies that in recent months has lost some of
