Wall Street was boosted by financial and telecom stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 35.54 points, or 0.18 percent, to 19,251.78, the S&P 500 gained 7.52 points, or 0.34 percent, to 2,212.23 and the Nasdaq Composite added 24.11 points, or 0.45 percent, to 5,333.00.
Asian shares opened higher boosted by Wall Street overnight, with a third quarter stutter for Australia's economy shrugged off for now and Japan's benchmark index up on an announcement that saw SoftBank shares gain smartly.
The Nikkei 225 was 0.58 percent higher.
Japan's SoftBank jumped 3.71 percent, after initially opening flat with Reuters reporting that the stock was initially under a trade halt because of an oversupply of buy orders after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced that the Japanese telco would invest $50 billion in the U.S. and aim to create 50,000 jobs in the next four years.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
Thai
Eng