By Scott Murdoch

HONG KONG, (Reuters) – Asian sharemarkets gained ground Wednesday due to the rising risk appetite of global investors heading into the year-end despite an increase in Omicron variants cases worldwide.

MSCI’s Asia-Pacific broadest index outside Japan was up 0.6% after U.S. stocks closed the previous session with gains.

Analysts said that the 0.1% drop in Australian shares was due to a stronger US dollar overnight, which caused a decrease in commodities demand and stocks related to the sector.

The stock index rose 0.1%

Hong Kong’s jumped 1.2%, while China’s blue chip CSI 300 Index was 0.23% higher in eary trading. The main driver for the Hong Kong’s strong open was tech stocks, which had been trading in negative territory throughout the week.

An improved night at Wall Street was a positive sign for Asian markets, with an increase in optimism for U.S. stocks.

They rose 560.54 point or 1.6% to reach 35,492.7.

Despite growing concern about Omicron’s spreading in the days leading up to holidays, the jump was made.

According to the World Health Organization, this variant has been detected for the first time last month and can cause infections to increase by as much as twofold in just 1.5-to-3 days.

However, it isn’t known if this causes more severe illness than the Delta version.

Asian investors were largely unaware of the recent rise in case number.

John Milroy of Ord Minnett, a Sydney advisor, said that “clients still want to buy here despite all the obvious risks both health-related and market-related”, according to Reuters.

“After 2 years, clients have grown tired of it. They acknowledge that it has happened but are back to the focus on their income which should be great in our opinion.”

Hong Hao, BOCOM International’s head of research, stated that China-based investors are more focused on potential supply-chain problems from COVID epidemics.

According to him, investors will be looking at case numbers as long China has not impacted its production capability.

New data shows Omicron isn’t as deadly as other forms of Omicron… the largest concern in China is the property sector.

The yield on benchmark in Asian trade was 1.651%, compared to its U.S. closing of 1.487% Tuesday. With traders expecting higher Fed Fund rates, the two-year yield rose to 0.6665% from 0.675%.

To 114.11, the dollar rose by 0.03% against its yen. The high of 115.51 in 2021-11-24 is still a distance away. At 96.42 the, which measures the greenback’s value against a basket currency of major trading partners was lower than its high of 115.51 on 2021-11-24.

The price of crude oil rose by $74.3/barrel, while the dollar index climbed 0.5% to $71.47.

The spot price for gold was $1789.36 an ounce, slightly more than the previous day.