Asia Stocks Climb as China’s Services Sector Expands at Fastest Pace in a Decade

Stocks in Asia continued their rally after China’s services sector posted its fastest expansion in over a decade in June.

 

As of 9:18 local time in Thailand (GMT+7), Nikkei gained 0.44%, SSEC rose 1.37%, HSI increased 0.55%, ASX 200 advanced 0.57% and Kospi hiked 0.63%.

 

On Friday, a private survey reported that China’s services sector had the fastest growth in a decade after the Caixin/Markit services Purchasing Managers Index in June came in at 58.4 May’s 55.0 as the economy started to recover from the lockdown.

However, the U.S. jobless claims for the last week of June rose by 1.42 million, higher than the Dow Jones’ poll at 1.38 million. The number has been above 1 million since March. Nevertheless, the Labor Department reported that 4.8 million jobs were added in June after the economy started to reopen.