Shares advance in Asia after S&P 500 logs all-time high

Asian shares were mostly higher Wednesday after the S&P 500 logged a fresh all-time high.

Markets in Hong Kong were closed due to a tropical storm.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.3% to 23,121.32 after the country reported its exports fell 19% in July from a year earlier, better than expected and an improvement over a 26.2% drop in June.

An 8.2% rise in exports to China, the first since early-2019, suggests the recovery there is helping offset weak demand in other markets, said Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics.

The nearly 21% decline in exports to the U.S. was much better than the 50.6% slump in May, with strong demand for technology allowing people to work from home helping sustain exports of computer chips and electrical machinery, he said. “But car exports, which were down 30% year-on-year, remain Japan’s Achilles heel," Thieliant said in a commentary.

Worries over trade tensions between the U.S. and China, which threaten to further disrupt trade between the two largest economies, initially pulled the Shanghai Composite index lower but by early afternoon it was less than 0.1% higher, at 3,452.38.

Tech stocks have stumbled recently amid worries that China could retaliate against U.S. moves against network equipment maker Huawei, social media company ByteDance and other Chinese technology giants by targeting U.S. chip makers and others.

The S&P/ASX 500 in Australia jumped 1% to 6,182.40.

Overnight, Wall Street clawed back the last of the dizzying losses unleashed by the new coronavirus, as the S&P 500 picked up 0.2% to 3,389.78, surpassing its previous record closing high of 3,386.15. It was set on Feb. 19, before the pandemic shut down businesses around the world and knocked economies into their worst recessions in decades.

The S&P...