By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were up on Thursday morning, contributing to a global rally as mostly positive U.S. data and positive signs about the impact of the omicron COVID-19 variant on the economic recovery.

Japan’s was up 0.31% by 9:44 PM ET (2:44 AM GMT), with Governor Haruhiko Kuroda speaking earlier in the day.

South Korea’s was up 0.32% and in Australia, the was up 0.38%.

Hong Kong’s gained 0.44%.

China’s edged up 0.15% and the was up 0.22%. Shares in JD (NASDAQ:).com Inc. (HK:) slid after Tencent Holdings (OTC:) Ltd. (HK:) announced plans to to investors as a one-time dividend. Tencent’s stake in JD.com will fall from around 17% to 2.3%.

The close of the session saw little change in U.S. stock shares. Wednesday’s U.S. data showed that the grew 2.3% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter of 2021 while were at 6.46 million for November and the was at 115.8 for December.

More data is available at, the, and later in the day. This data includes income and expenditure as well as indexes from the University of Michigan.

Global stocks gauge is currently up over 2% in the past month. The index will be 15% higher by 2021, and it’ll surpass the 2020 gains. But recent market volatility, with the discovery of omicron and central banks’ moves towards tighter monetary policy, still has some investors concerned.

“Markets hate uncertainty and not knowing, and when omicron hit the markets, we didn’t know. But it seems like it’s edging toward something more positive,” BMO Family Office deputy chief investment officer Carol Schleif told Bloomberg.

Concerning COVID-19, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:) COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid received an emergency authorization from U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“The virus’s unpredictable path, as well as the effect on growth and inflation, continue to dominate investor fear appetite,” David Chao of Invesco Asia Pacific, Global Market Strategist, stated to Reuters.

According to “Recent health data” from other countries around the world, the possibility of a deadly disease in the U.K. is very unlikely. Even though the transmission rate is higher, it seems that this variant of HIV appears to be less dangerous and more likely to cause death or serious illness.

Meanwhile, the Chinese city of Xi’an tightened restrictive measures to curb its latest outbreak of the virus. Omicron is now the predominant COVID-19 strain of Australia. New South Wales has seen a record number daily Omicron cases.