Asia-Pacific stocks rise after overnight Wall Street jump

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific rose in Friday morning trade following gains overnight on Wall Street. Investors will also be looking ahead to the release of U.S. jobs data for May.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 gained 1.23% as shares of Fast Retailing soared close to 4%. The Topix index gained 0.73%.

The Kospi in South Korea edged 0.79% higher, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.67%.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.52% higher.

Overnight on Wall Street, the three major indexes stateside snapped two-day losing streaks. The S&P 500 jumped 1.84% to 4,176.82. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 435.05 points, or 1.33%, to 33,248.28. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite surged 2.69% to 12,316.90.

U.S. jobs data for May is set to be out at 8:30 p.m. HK/SIN on Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones see 328,000 jobs added in May, a 100,000 decline from April.

OPEC and its oil-producing allies agreed Thursday to hike output in July and August by a larger-than-expected amount as Russia's invasion of Ukraine roils global energy markets.

Oil prices were higher in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.3% to $117.96 per barrel. U.S. crude futures also advanced 0.27% to $117.19 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 101.758 following a volatile week so far that has seen it going at points from below 101.6 to above 102.4.

The Japanese yen traded at 129.98 per dollar, weaker as compared with levels below 128 seen against the greenback earlier this week, The Australian dollar was at $0.7263 after a recent jump from below $0.721.