Asia shares rebound after Wall St rally

Asian markets climbed on Thursday, boosted by bargain hunting and a positive lead from Wall Street that came despite a worse than expected first-quarter contraction in the US economy. Tokyo rose 0.27 per cent, or 41.88 points to 15,308.49, Sydney jumped 1.15 per cent, or 62.29 points, to 5464.3 and Seoul added 0.67 per cent, or 13.28 points, at 1,995.05, while Shanghai ended 0.65 per cent, or 13.18 points, higher at 2,038.68. In the afternoon Hong Kong was up 1.05 per cent. With little to drive business, investors picked up cheap stocks after Wednesday’s sell-off, with sentiment buoyed by a batch of healthy data this week, including Chinese manufacturing and US homes sales and consumer confidence. In the United States, the Commerce Department said the world's number one economy shrunk a steep 2.9 per cent in the first three months of 2014, sharply down from the previous estimate of 1.0 per cent. The figure is the worst since the height of the global financial crisis five years ago. However, it was widely brushed off by economists, who described it as a blip caused by the severe winter at the start of the year which hammered, among other things, jobs growth and retail sales. Most expect a strong rebound over the rest of the year.
In other markets:
– Wellington rose 0.50 percent, or 35.61 points, to 5,130.15. Trade Me was up 1.16 percent at NZ$3.49 and Telecom added 0.19 percent to NZ$2.695.
– Taipei advanced 0.85 percent, or 78.78 points, to 9,320.94, according to AFP.