singapore japans markets were set to rise as stocks on wall street surged for a second session japans nikkei futures contract in chicago was at 27290 while its counterpart in osaka was at 27300 higher than the nikkei 225s last close at 27001 elsewhere markets in mainland china hong kong south korea and singapore are closed for a holiday in economic data ahead australia is due to release its interest rate decision as well as retail sales for december japan is also set to release its manufacturing data for january it is widely expected the reserve bank of australia will end quantitative easing and also open up the possibility to rating hikes in 2022 but will view early 2023 as being more probable according to their wages forecasts wrote tapas strickland director of economics and markets at the national australia bank over on wall street stocks surged for a second day monday to wrap up a rough january the sp 500 rose 189 to 451555 closing out the month down 53 thats its worst month since the 125 loss in march 2020 and its biggest january decline since 2009 the dow jones industrial average added 40639 points or 12 to reach 3513186 that helped it cut its monthly loss to 33 as it benefitted from its underweighting in tech shares the techheavy nasdaq composite rose 341 to 1423988 adding to its 3 comeback friday the index still ended down 89 for january its worst month since march 2020 the us dollar index which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers was at 96649 declining from levels around 971 earlier in the week the japanese yen traded at 11514 per dollar strengthening from levels around 1152 previously the australian dollar was at 07067 rising from levels around 0698 earlier meanwhile oil rose on monday to their biggest monthly gain in almost a year amid a supply shortage and political tensions in eastern europe and the middle east according to reuters as the russiaukraine crisis escalates moscow is sending more troops and weapons to its border where an estimated 100000 troops are already deployed brent crude finished the day at 9121 for a gain of 131 us west texas intermediate crude settled 153 higher at 8815 per barrel