(Reuters) – Asian stock markets rose Tuesday after a record day on Wall Street, while bitcoin took a breather after an overnight approval from Tesla Inc raised the cryptocurrency by 20%.
Oil also reached 13-month highs, helped by growing optimism about the return in fuel demand ，
However, in a sign that the positive sentiment in European trade may run out, eurostoxx futures fell by 0.05%, the London FTSE futures fell by 0.12% and the E-mini futures contract for the S&P 500 was flat.
Back in Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan rose 0.37% to 722.95 after rising to 730.16 late last month.
The gain was led by Chinese blue chips which rose by 1.67%, while the Hong Kong benchmark rose by 0.51% and Korea’s rise by 0.27%, with disk giants taking advantage of the bitcoin excitement .
Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING, said Chinese markets’ good performance was due to investors buying before the Chinese New Year break, expecting prices to be higher after the holidays.
Chinese stock exchanges have been closed for a week since Thursday.
The Japanese Nikkei rose 0.27%.
The gains on Tuesday in Asia are in line with the so-called worldwide reflective trade, in which world markets offer stocks, oil and gold, while US Treasury yields hold the 11-month high.
“Reflection due to the US fiscal stimulus and positive vaccine news remains the main theme for markets,” National Australia Bank strategists wrote.
Expectations have risen that inflation will increase as governments and central banks continue with massive spending and easy monetary policies until officials are confident their economy will recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Wall Street reached its all-time high on Monday as the Nasdaq Composite added nearly 1% and the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 0.75%.
In more volatile crypto-currency markets, bitcoin passed $ 47,000 for the first time, up 20%, before fluctuating slightly below the level.
Tesla Inc said overnight that it has invested about $ 1.5 billion in the virtual currency and expects to accept it as payment for its cars in the future.
Justin d’Anethan, sales manager of the digital asset industry Diginex, said most of the sales pressure was taken up in Asia.
“This morning, after the brief liquidation of more than $ 1.2 billion worth of shorts, ordinary crypto sellers will probably think twice before dumping their coins,” d’Anethan said.
The oil price continued to rise on Tuesday to its 13-month high.
Brent rose 45 cents, or 0.74%, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was at $ 58.39 a barrel, up 43 cents, or 0.74%.
“There’s a sense that the amount of oil supplies is disappearing faster than anyone might have thought,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “There seems to be a paradigm shift in the market.”
Spot gold rose 0.37% to $ 1,837 an ounce, a week high, as expectations of a major US economic stimulus package strengthened its appeal as an inflation hedge.
Such expectations hit the dollar index, which fell further on Tuesday after stumbling on a weaker-than-expected job report late last week. It was last 0.25% lower at 90.728.
Reporting by David Henry in New York; and Alun John in Hong Kong Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Gerry Doyle and Raju Gopalakrishnan