Asian shares rise, echoing Wall St optimism on virus battle

Asian shares rose Tuesday, echoing the rally on Wall Street, amid a few glimmers of hope that the coronavirus pandemic could be slowing.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 1.3% to 18,808.53 while South Korea's Kospi gained 1.2% to 1,812.87. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.7% to 23,907.52, while the Shanghai Composite jumped 1.7% to 2,814.09.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.3% lower to 5,297.90. Shares rose in Taiwan and most of Southeast Asia, but fell 0.9% in Indonesia.

China on Tuesday reported no new deaths from the coronarivus over the past 24 hours and had 32 new cases, all from people who returned from overseas. The country that gave rise to the global pandemic has recorded 3,331 deaths and 81,740 total cases.

Numbers of daily new deaths have been hovering in the single digits for weeks, hitting just one on several occasions.

The number of new coronavirus cases is dropping in the European hotspots of Italy and Spain. The center of the U.S. outbreak, New York, also reported its number of daily deaths has been effectively flat for two days.

Even though the U.S. is still bracing for a surge of deaths due to COVID-19 and New York’s governor said restrictions should stay in place to slow its spread, the encouraging signs were enough to launch the S&P 500 to its best day in nearly two weeks.

The S&P 500 climbed 175.03, or 7%, to 2,663.68, and nearly all the stocks in the index were higher. It more than recovered all its losses from the prior week, when the government reported a record number of layoffs sweeping the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up 1,627.46 points, or 7.7%, to 22,679.99, and the Nasdaq rose 540.15, or 7.3%, to 7,913.24.