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-Markets mostly rose in Asia on Monday, following another rally on Wall Street fueled by optimism over the world economy as inflation slows and China reopens to the world.
After last year’s battering, caused by surging prices and central bank interest rate hikes, the new year has seen a calmer mood on trading floors, with recession fears receding and bargain-buying providing support to equities.
While China is expected this week to report its worst annual growth since 1976 — excluding pandemic-ravaged 2020 — its emergence from zero-Covid and pledges to boost key sectors are raising hopes for a strong rebound in 2023.
Signs that the government was taking a lighter touch on the tech sector after a long-running crackdown were also lifting confidence and giving a boost to market majors, including Alibaba and Tencent.
And HSBC’s Frederic Neumann said China’s emergence from almost three years of strict virus containment measures would likely boost the global economy.
