The Australian ASX Leads Asia This Morning

Australian stocks climbed higher this morning as they tracked US stocks, which rose to fresh record highs overnight. Other Asian markets stumbled and had a mixed performance.

This morning the Australian benchmark stock index, the S&P ASX 200 was up 1.31% with most of its sub-sectors in the green. The heavily weighted financial sub-index outperformed rising 1.1 percent on the day. The materials sector climbed 1.7 percent and materials also rose. The Australian Dollar (AUD/USD) gapped higher to $0.7438 during the session. This is up from 0.7320 earlier this week.

The markets in the Down Under were driven by commodity prices. The view is that commodity prices are going to remain a bit higher thanks to an increase in demand from the United States and China. This caused mining plays to rise on the day. Companies like Rio Tinto rose 2.3 percent. Fortescue Mining rose 2.5 percent and BHP Billiton jumped over 2.8 percent on the day.

Turning our attention to the other regional markets, Japanese financial markets were shuttered for the Labor Thanksgiving holiday today. In New Zealand, the NZX 50 rose nearly 0.3 percent while in South Korea, stocks on the Kospi Composite Index were marginally higher. In Hong Kong, shares on the Hang Seng Composite Index also rose moderately. On mainland China, shares were mostly mixed on the day. The Shanghai Composite rose 0.1 percent and the smaller Shenzhen Composite rose fell a bit lower.

Looking at the broad Forex universe, this morning, the US Dollar Index, which tracks the buck against a basket of currencies, was trading at 100.99 at 10:30 am HK time. Pretty unchanged from yesterday afternoon at 101.04. The Japanese yen is trading at 101.11 against the US Dollar, as it fell from levels near ¥110 last week. Looking at the euro this morning, the EUR/USD is trading near 1.0621 and the British Pound was near 1.2407.