Asian Shares Track Wall Street Gains Amid Vaccine Hopes

Asian shares were higher Friday on hopes for development of a coronavirus vaccine, although worries remained about long-term economic damage from the pandemic.

The rise in regional benchmarks echoed the gains on Wall Street, which were led by big technology companies that are benefiting from people staying home during the outbreak.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 0.2% to finish at 22,920.30. South Korea’s Kospi edged up 1.3% to 2,302.72. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 inched down 0.1% to 6,111.20. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.2% to 25,090.56, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.1% to 3,368.77.

Reports that Pfizer’s vaccine is on track to seek October regulatory review boosted sentiments despite uncertainty about global growth, said Jingyi Pan, market strategist at IG in Singapore.

Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said they will take their COVID-19 vaccine candidate with the fewest side effects into final-stage testing. It’s one of a handful of experimental vaccines to reach end-stage tests around the world.

“Asia markets have broadly tailed Wall Street with gains, aided also by the latest vaccine news boost to sentiment,” Pan said.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% after rallying back from an earlier 0.6% loss as investors weighed new government data showing an increase in the number of Americans who sought unemployment aid last week.

The discouraging report helped send two out of every three stocks in the S&P 500 lower. Energy producers and financial companies had some of the sharpest drops. But tech stocks in the S&P 500 nevertheless rose 1.4%, continuing a remarkable run of resilience.

The S&P 500 was up 10.66 points to 3,385.51. The gains kept the benchmark index close to its record level. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 46.85 points, or 0.2%, to 27,739.73.

The strength in tech stocks helped lift the Nasdaq composite up 118.49 points, or 1.1%, to 11,264.95, a record high. Smaller companies didn’t fare as well. The Russell 2000 index lost 7.76 points, or 0.5%, to 1,564.30.

In the U.S., Uber and Lyft bounced higher after an appeals court said the ride-hailing giants can continue treating their drivers as independent contractors in California while an appeal works its way through the court. Uber jumped 6.8% and Lyft gained 5.8%.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 35 cents to $42.58 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 10 cents to $45.00 a barrel.

The U.S. dollar slipped to 105.57 Japanese yen from 105.87 yen Thursday. The euro cost $1.1879, up slightly from $1.1842.