While most equity markets across the world remain closed on April 3 on account of Good Friday, some of the Asian markets traded in green in hope of the Strait of Hormuz getting opened.
Japan’s Nikkei was trading about 1.1 percent, or over 600 points higher, at 53,072 points on Friday. It was at 52,945 points at the start of the lunch break but jumped to 53,066 points as trading resumed. It was trading at around 53,051 during 2:30 PM GMT+9.
Similarly, South Korea’s Kospi climbed 2.6 percent, or 133 points, during the trade.
The positive trajectory of the indices came as Iran and Oman were reported to be engaged in drafting a protocol to monitor transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
This has raised hopes of the narrow but crucial waterway getting opened for trade, especially for the transit of oil and gas.
According to an Iranian state news agency, Kazem Gharibabadi, the country’s deputy foreign minister of legal and international affairs, said that tanker traffic through the key oil-shipping route “should be supervised and coordinated” with the two countries.
However, futures posted a decline. While Dow Futures was trading 0.11 percent lower at around 46,680 points, S&P 500 Futures was down 0.14 percent to trade at around 6,613 points.
GIFT Nifty has also declined 0.74 percent, or 169 points, to 22,676 points.
Though the domestic equity indices are closed on account of Good Friday, the BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty had posted a sharp rise from their intraday decline in Thursday’s session.
In the morning, Sensex had fallen up to 1,588 points to its intraday low of 71,545. In the same vein, Nifty also declined by 496.85 points to 22,182.55. The fall was led by weak global investor sentiment and uncertainty about the United States-Israel-Iran war.
The sharp bounce came in the market towards the later hours of trade as investors lapped up blue-chip stocks to take advantage of the dip. This resulted in Sensex jumping over 2,000 points from the day’s low to 73,568 points.
