Cherry trees in bloom near the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday, April 7, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose after key U.S. benchmark indexes hit fresh highs overnight as artificial intelligence chip firm Nvidia overtook Microsoft as the most valuable public company.
Shares of the chipmaker jumped 3.5% overnight on Wall Street and have surged 174% since the beginning of the year.
Investors in Asia assessed Japan’s trade data for May, with exports beating expectations. Exports grew 13.5% year on year compared with a 13% increase expected by economists polled by Reuters. Imports growth of 9.5%, however, missed expectations of a 10.4% increase.
Investors also digested the Reuters Tankan index reading which showed business confidence among large Japanese manufacturers decreased to +6 from +9 in May. On the flip side, business confidence among non-manufacturers climbed to +31 from +26 in May.
The Tankan measures business confidence among Japanese corporations, and a positive figure means optimists outnumber pessimists and vice versa.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 increased by 0.61%, while the broad-based Topix inched 0.56%.
Japanese investment holding company SoftBank saw shares climb by more than 3%. The company has a stake in U.S.-listed chip designer Arm, whose architecture is used in chips including those made by Nvidia.
South Korea’s Kospi gained more than 1%, powered by a 2.26% gain in heavyweight Samsung Electronics. Other South Korean tech stocks also rose, with LG Electronics jumping 6%, while SK Hynix climbed more than 1%. The small-cap Kosdaq rose 0.27%.
The Taiwan Weighted Index reached new highs, gaining 1.13% to cross the 23,000 mark.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped marginally.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were at 18,003, higher than the HSI’s last close of 17,915.55.