Asian markets rise after Wall Street gains

Source: AP

By JOE McDONALD

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets rose Monday after Wall Street gained on strong earnings and investors looked ahead to Apple results and this week's U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.

KEEPING SCORE: The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.1 percent to 4,441.93 points and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.7 percent to 28.245.14. Sydney's S&P ASX 200 added 0.7 percent to 5,973.30 and Seoul advanced 0.2 percent to 2,163.17. Taiwan, Singapore and Manila also rose. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 was unchanged at 20,024.76. On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.1 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 0.2 percent. The Nasdaq composite, dominated by tech stocks, advanced 0.7 percent.

U.S. ECONOMY: Investors were looking ahead to Wednesday's meeting of the Fed board amid concern data this week will show the U.S. economy weakened in the first quarter. The Fed has no plans to update forecasts. Still, the meeting "will be closely watched to see if markets had been too eager to push out Fed hike expectations, especially now that oil prices have pushed above $55 / barrel," said DBS in a report.

EYES ON APPLE: Investors looked ahead to Apple Inc.'s quarterly results, due out after U.S. markets close on Monday. The world's most valuable company by market capitalization will be among 150 market-moving names in the S&P 500 including Ford, Visa, Pfizer and Exxon Mobil that report earnings this week. Apple, though still driven largely by iPhone sales, is being closely watched for signs of how its new Apple Watches are doing with customers.

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