Asian shares mixed after stimulus lifts Dow, S&P to records

BANGKOK (AP) — Stocks were mixed in Asia on Friday after broad gains lifted several major indexes to all-time highs on Wall Street.

Tokyo’s benchmark rose 1.7%. Hong Kong declined but the Shanghai Composite index recovered from early losses. Oil prices fell and the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury rose to 1.57%.

U.S. markets surged Thursday after President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping pandemic relief package that would provide $1,400 checks for most Americans and direct billions of dollars to schools, state and local governments, and businesses affected by pandemic-related shutdowns, which began a year ago.

That and progress in vaccinations against Covid-19 have helped settle some of the uncertainty that has roiled markets in recent weeks.

“With regular service resumed, we can expect markets globally to end the week on a positive note," Jeffrey Halley of Oanda said in a commentary. But a calming of worries over inflation, eased by a lower than expected U.S. consumer price reading for February, is likely temporary, he said.

“The inflation genie may have been put back into its bottle for the weekend, but someone is sure to pick it up and uncork it again soon," Halley said.

The Nikkei 225 added 506 points to 29,717.83, while South Korea's Kospi climbed 1.4% to 3,054.39. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.8% to 6,766.80. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.8% to 29,135.73 and the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.3% to 3,448.35.

Shares rose in Taiwan and Jakarta but fell in Singapore and Malaysia.

On Thursday, the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a measure of small-company stocks all closed at record levels as a recent stretch of volatile trading in the bond market continued to ease, keeping investors in a buying mood.

The S&P 500...