All markets are closing well in Asia as the MSCI Asia Pacific regional index manages to erase previous days' losses and finish the week still higher, after +0,9% today, helped both by yesterday's good US data (unemployment benefits and new residential construction sites) and by Chinese data. Tokyo in particular recovered strongly, after the yen renewed its depreciation trend in a big way, quickly exceeding 90 against the dollar. The Shanghai Stock Exchange also reacted well to the data, better than expected, relating to both GDP growth (+7,9% over the year) and industrial production (+10,3%).
The euro also rose, attempting to attack the 1,34 level again (which European producers are not at all happy with) and so did oil, which exceeded 95 $/b. Not to be outdone, gold again wants to approach 1700, which it had abandoned for a few weeks.
