Asian shares higher, many markets closed for Lunar New Year

The gains followed a rally Friday for tech stocks that countered worries about the weakening US economy.In other trading, US benchmark crude oil lost 35 cents to USD 81.29 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Shares were higher in Asia on Monday, but most markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, with markets in Shanghai shut for the whole week.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index added 1.1 per cent to 26,852.85 and the S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney edged 0.1 per cent higher, to 7,456.90. The gains followed a rally Friday for tech stocks that countered worries about the weakening US economy.

In other trading, US benchmark crude oil lost 35 cents to USD 81.29 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained USD 1.03 to USD 81.64 per barrel on Friday.

Brent crude, the price benchmark for international trading, gave up 40 cents to USD 87.23 per barrel.

The US dollar slipped to 129.14 Japanese yen from 129.59 yen. The euro rose to USD 1.0905 from USD 1.0868.

On Friday, the S&P 500 rose 1.9 per cent to 3,972.61. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1 per cent to 33,375.49. The Nasdaq added 2.7 per cent to close at 11,140.43.

Small company stocks also notched solid gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.7 per cent, to finish at 1,867.34.

Despite the gains, the benchmark index still ended with its first weekly loss in the last three.

Technology and communication services stocks powered much of the gains as investors cheered another big quarterly surge in Netflix's subscribers.

Gains for tech-oriented stocks accounted for a big share of the S&P 500's rally Friday. Google's parent company, Alphabet said it was cutting costs by laying off 12,000 workers. Its shares jumped 5.3 per cent.

Netflix reported a surge in its number of subscribers and saw its shares leap 8.5 per cent.

The major indexes started the week in the red largely because of worries that the economy may not be able to avoid a scarring recession. Several reports on the economy have come in weaker than expected, as the full weight of the Federal Reserve's hikes to interest rates last year start to make their way through the system.

On Friday, Fed Gov. Christopher Waller said he favours just a quarter-point hike on February 1, when the central bank gives its next interest rate policy update. Waller also said that rates are already high enough to be slowing the economy. The remarks could have helped calm rising-rate worries in the market.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)