Asian shares climb on Biden’s transition, vaccine progress

Asian shares recorded an upbeat performance on Tuesday. The series of increase came after markets’ sentiment was supported by reports that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden was given the approval to start his White House transition. In addition to this, encouraging news about a coronavirus vaccine bolstered gains.

Biden’s plan of nominating former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen for Treasury secretary had sent Wall Street up. Futures for the S&P 500 had seen a 0.48% in their early Asian session.

The increase on Wall Street had spilled across Asia, driving MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan up 0.15%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 1.1%, hitting its sharpest level in almost nine months as energy shares came to be the biggest earner.

Japan’s Nikkei soared 2.48% as South Korea’s KOSPI hiked 0.74%. However, Chinese blue chips and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index bucked the trend as both declined 0.75% and 0.08% respectively.