Samsung Life Insurance gained over 3.59%, while Mirae Asset Securities was up 3.69%. Defense heavyweight Hanwha Aerospace jumped 6.35%, while counterpart Firstec was up a whopping 16.7%.<\/p>\n
Index heavyweight SK Hynix rose 3.36%.<\/p>\n
However, other Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Friday, after all three major Wall Street indexes declined overnight pressured by a drop in private credit stocks and Iran-U.S. tensions.<\/p>\n
Prospects of a strike on Iran have risen with U.S. President Donald Trump saying that he would take a call<\/a> to decide on military action against Tehran in the next 10 days. <\/p>\n Oil prices extended gains in reaction to that news, with U.S. crude<\/a>\u00a0rising 0.53%, to trade at $66.78 per barrel on Friday. Global benchmark\u00a0Brent<\/a>\u00a0gained 0.18%, to settle at $71.79.<\/p>\n Over in Asia, traders are assessing Japan’s inflation data, with headline inflation for January dipping below<\/a> the Bank of Japan’s 2% target for the first time in 45 months.<\/p>\n Japan’s Nikkei 225<\/a> was down 1.29%, dragged by utilities stocks, while the Topix was 1.3% lower.<\/p>\n Shares of Sumitomo Pharma<\/a>, one of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies, were volatile in early trade, climbing as much as 6.81% before plunging over 11%. <\/p>\n Stock Chart IconStock chart icon Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index<\/a> was down 0.5%, dragged by tech stocks. Mainland China’s markets are still closed for the Lunar New Year holiday. <\/p>\n Australia’s\u00a0S&P\/ASX 200<\/a> slipped to hover just below the flatline.<\/p>\n Overnight in the U.S., private credit and software stocks were also under pressure, with the\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0shedding 0.54%, and the broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.28%. The tech-heavy\u00a0Nasdaq Composite<\/a>\u00a0lost 0.31%.<\/p>\n \u2014CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report. <\/p>\n Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Hong Kong markets are open today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Seoul city skyline early on December 16, 2020. (Photo by Ed JONES \/ AFP) (Photo by ED…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[151246,3199,7257,941,114,357,35951,30935,54,151645,31011,144658,151647,3449,85,151650,150425,87,151620,151646,151649,46,7258,64251,190,3197,39310,3310,11471,144657,151648,31222,1032,151247,150424,151619,2966],"class_list":{"0":"post-300465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-lco26n","9":"tag-asia-economy","10":"tag-breaking-news-asia","11":"tag-breaking-news-markets","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-business-news","14":"tag-chevron-corp","15":"tag-conocophillips","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-eog-resources-inc","18":"tag-exxon-mobil-corp","19":"tag-fidelity-nasdaq-composite-index-track","20":"tag-franklin-ftse-south-korea-etf","21":"tag-hang-seng-index","22":"tag-il","23":"tag-invesco-aerospace-defense-etf","24":"tag-invesco-db-oil-fund","25":"tag-iran","26":"tag-ishares-msci-japan-etf","27":"tag-ishares-msci-south-korea-etf","28":"tag-ishares-u-s-aerospace-defense-etf","29":"tag-israel","30":"tag-kospi-index","31":"tag-lp","32":"tag-markets","33":"tag-nikkei-225-index","34":"tag-occidental-petroleum-equity-warrants-exp-3rd-august-2027","35":"tag-sp-500-index","36":"tag-south-korea","37":"tag-spdr-dow-jones-industrial-average-etf-trust","38":"tag-spdr-sp-insurance-etf","39":"tag-sumitomo-pharma-co-ltd","40":"tag-united-states","41":"tag-united-states-brent-oil-fund","42":"tag-united-states-oil-fund","43":"tag-wisdomtree-japan-hedged-equity-fund","44":"tag-world-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"hide](\"https:\/\/static-redesign.cnbcfm.com\/dist\/a54b41835a8b60db28c2.svg\")
<\/p>\n