SINGAPORE — Japan’s Tokyo Stock Exchange halted trading on Thursday due to a technical issue, while many major markets in the region are closed for holidays.
Japan Exchange Group said in a Thursday release that the Tokyo Stock Exchange has stopped trading for the day following a “system glitch.” It added that it cannot say at this point when trading can resume.
The Japanese government has instructed the exchange to identify the cause of the technical issue, Reuters reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia gained 0.98% to close at 5,872.90. Elsewhere, Singapore’s Straits Times index rose 1.31%, as of about 3:12 p.m. local time. The Nifty 50 in India also advanced more than 1%.
Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was 0.54% higher.
Markets in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan were closed on Thursday for holidays.
In corporate developments, shares of Singapore telecommunications firm Singtel jumped about 1.9% in Thursday afternoon trade after the firm announced that its CEO is set to retire on Jan. 1, 2021.
On the economic data front, the headline large manufacturers index in the Bank of Japan’s quarterly tankan business sentiment survey came in at minus 27, against expectations of a minus 23 reading in a Reuters poll. Still, that was better than the minus 34 reading in June.
Bank of America Global Research’s Izumi Devalier said the tankan figures were “not entirely surprising.”
“The good news is that we have confirmed that the bottom of Japan’s economy and the recession and shock from the coronavirus was indeed in the second quarter,” Izumi Devalier, head of Japan economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told CNBC on Thursday. On the flipside, she said sentiment levels remain “very, very low,” particularly among manufacturers.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 93.621 in a week that has seen it decline from levels above 94.2.
The Japanese yen traded at 105.48 per dollar after seeing levels above 105.6 against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.719 following its rise yesterday from levels below $0.715.
Oil prices were higher in the afternoon of Asian trading hours. Brent crude futures were up 0.14% at $42.36 per barrel. U.S. crude futures were above the flatline at $40.23 per barrel.
