Stock market today: Asian shares are mostly higher as China begins major economic meeting

Shares were mostly higher in Asia on Monday as China’s leaders began a major meeting expected to bring fresh pledges of help for the world’s second-largest economy.

Oil prices gained more than $1 a barrel after the OPEC+ oil producing nations said they would extend production cuts until the end of the year.

No reason was given for the move, which came ahead of the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday.

U.S. benchmark crude oil gained $1.27 to $70.76 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up $1.30 to $74.70 a barrel.

The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress is meeting this week and analysts were predicting the government may endorse major spending initiatives to boost the economy.

“Markets are alive with whispers of a fresh stimulus package, setting expectations sky-high and creating a buzz that’s hard to ignore,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.1% to 20,540.44, while the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.3% at 3,281,76.

Markets in Tokyo were closed for a holiday.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.2% higher to 8,134.60 and the Kospi in Seoul jumped 1% to 2,568.85.

Taiwan’s Taiex was up 0.3%.

On Friday, Amazon led U.S. stock indexes higher, while a surprisingly weak jobs report marred by some unusual occurrences cemented bets on Wall Street for another cut to interest rates next week.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 5,728.80, recovering some of its loss from the day before, its worst in eight weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7% to 42,052.19, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.8% to 18,239.92.

Amazon climbed 6.2% after delivering a bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected and was the strongest force pushing the S&P 500 higher.

Intel, meanwhile, rallied 7.8% despite reporting a worse loss than expected. Its revenue topped analysts’ estimates, and it gave a forecast for results in the current quarter that likewise topped expectations. Cardinal Health was another one of the market’s bigger gainers and jumped 7% after topping analysts’ forecasts for profit and revenue in the latest quarter. It also raised its profit forecast for its fiscal year, which is only in its second quarter.

They helped offset a 1.2% slide for Apple, which said it expects revenue growth in the important holiday quarter to be in the low to mid-single digit percentages. That was below several analysts’ forecasts.

Treasury yields pushed higher after a highly anticipated report said U.S. employers added only 12,000 workers to their payrolls last month, far short of the 115,000 in hiring that economists were expecting or the 223,00 jobs that employers created in September.

A separate report said U.S. manufacturing contracted by more last month than economists expected. It’s been one of the areas of the economy hurt most by the Federal Reserve’s keeping interest rates at a two-decade high until September.

The nearly unanimous expectation on Wall Street remains for the Fed to cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point next week.

The two-year Treasury yield, which closely tracks expectations for the Fed’s actions, initially fell following the jobs report but then climbed to 4.20% from 4.18% late Thursday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which also takes future economic growth and other factors into account, likewise rose after a knee-jerk drop. It climbed to 4.37%, up from 4.29% late Thursday.

The hope on Wall Street is that the economy will still avoid a recession, even with the slowdown in the job market, thanks in part to coming cuts to interest rates by the Fed. The overall economy has so far remained more resilient than feared.

In currency dealings early Monday, the dollar slipped to 152.05 Japanese yen from 152.42 yen late Friday. The euro fell to $1.0879 from $1.0881.