Asian markets Tuesday were on the upswing thanks to better-than-expected economic news from China.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index was trading well over 2.5% in late afternoon trading, while the KOSPI was up nearly 2%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX was more than 1% higher. Hong Kong and Shanghai were both trading nearly 1% higher.
Beijing announced Tuesday that its global exports fell 11.4% in the first three months of 2020 compared to a year earlier, as measured in Chinese currency terms, although it was much smaller than the expected 14% drop predicted by Reuters.
In futures trading, London’s FTSE was nearly 3% higher, and all three major U.S. stock indexes were trading above 1.5%.