Asian markets continue to trade higher, gold stabilizes below $1,250

All the major Asian indices were trading higher on last trading day of the week. On the other side, gold was trading around $1,243 mark while silver was trading around $17.57 marks.

From the economic data point of view, Japan released flash manufacturing PMI data with negative numbers at 52.6 against previous 53.3. In addition, South Korea’s March consumer sentiment index increases to 96.7 vs previous 94.4.

Today Sri Lanka’s Central Bank raised key monetary policy rates by 25 bps. Sri Lanka Central bank says year-on-year growth of private sector credit decelerated further to 20.9 pct in January 2017 from 21.9 pct at end 2016.

Japan’s Nikkei was trading around 0.77 percent higher at 19,233 points.

Hong Kong’s Hang seng was trading 0.02 percent higher at 24,333 points.

Australia’s S&P ASX200 was trading around 0.71 percent higher at 5,748 marks.

South Korea’s Kospi was trading 0.27 percent lower at 2,165 points.

Shanghai composite index to open flat at 3,247.35 points and China's CSI300 index to open up 0.1 pct at 3,464.20 points.

Taiwan’s market was trading 0.26 percent lower at 9,913.29 points.