STI misses out on Asia's post-trade deal party

ASIAN benchmarks - with the exception of Singapore's Straits Times Index (STI) - picked up where Wall Street's rally left off after a US-China interim trade deal was confirmed last Friday.

Equity markets are also being lifted by better-than-expected Chinese factory and retail sales data, suggesting that trade outlook has improved alongside the continued strength of the Chinese consumer.

China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan were higher. Traders observed that North-east Asian benchmarks, which tend to have higher weightings on cyclically sensitive tech manufacturers, performed better.