A couple looks at LED lights before Christmas in Tokyo, Japan
Kiyoshi Ohta | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets started the holiday-shortened Christmas week on a positive note. U.S. government shutdown averted weekend.
On Monday, investors will be watching for any official announcements related to the Japanese automaker merger honda cars and Nissan Motors. Japanese media Jiji Press reported that the news could be released as soon as Monday.
This comes after Nissan stock Record surge last Wednesday,follow media reports The troubled Japanese automaker is seeking to merge with Honda.
Japanese Nikkei 225 Index rose 0.68%, while the Topix gained 0.51%.
Korean Cospi The Kosdaq rose 0.72%, with the small-cap Kosdaq rising 0.96%.
Australian S&P/ASX 200 Index It opened up 0.71% on the day.
Hong Kong Futures Hang Seng Index The Hang Seng Index closed at 19,886 points, opening stronger than the Hang Seng Index closing at 19,720.7 points.
All three major U.S. stock indexes rose on Friday, driven by lower-than-expected inflation data.
this Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.18%, while S&P 500 Index rose 1.09%, dominated by technology stocks Nasdaq Index up 1.03%.
this personal consumption expenditures price indexThe Fed’s preferred inflation gauge accelerated to 2.4% in November from 2.3% the previous month, but was still below Dow Jones’ forecast of 2.5%.
Excluding food and energy, core PCE rose 2.8% annually, slightly below expectations of 2.9%.
—CNBC’s Brian Evans, Sean Conlon and Jeff Cox contributed to this report.
