Asian stocks edged up on Friday, thanks to gains on Wall Street, but signs of widening cracks in the global economy curbed risk appetite as markets looked to a key U.S. job report that could determine whether the Federal Reserve cuts rates further.
Investors have been caught out by a set of weak U.S. data this week, including surveys on services and manufacturing sectors, deepening fears the sino-U.S. trade war is starting to hurt growth in the world’s biggest economy.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-pacific shares outside japan. miapj0000pus rose 0.4%. Japan’s NIKKEI stock index n225 rose 0.22%, and Australian shares rose 0.54%.
The pan-region Euro stoxx 50 futures stxec1 were up 0.44%, German DAX futures FDXC1 0.33% higher and FTSE futures FFIC1 advanced 0.69%.
U.S. stock futures esc1 tacked on 0.1% on Friday, following a 0.80% increase in the S&P 500 on Wall Street overnight on hopes that future fed rate cuts will support corporate profits.
That sentiment was underscored by a frail performance for world stocks in recent weeks, hurt by political uncertainty in the United Stated and Hong Kong, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, brexit and a drumroll of weak global data.
