Green Asia: AI Euphoria Lifts Markets
Asian stocks opened higher, mirroring Wall Street's record-breaking rally, fueled by optimism about artificial intelligence. In Japan, markets opened higher, with Hitachi briefly rising 8.1%. In the US, the S&P 500 rose 0.1% and the Nasdaq 100 0.4% to a new peak after OpenAI's share sale boosted tech stocks. Alibaba jumped 3.6% in New York (a more than 4-year high), while the China tech ADR index rose 1.1% (a 3-year high). "Tech momentum shows no signs of abating," said Vantage Markets analyst Hebe Chen.
The tech excitement overshadowed concerns about the second day of the US government shutdown, as the White House prepared plans to cut thousands of jobs and President Donald Trump met with Budget Secretary Russell Vought. In Asia, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda is scheduled to speak in Osaka. China and South Korea remain closed.
Official US data is delayed: weekly jobless claims and the possibility of nonfarm payrolls are due Friday following the data blackout. Challenger, Gray & Christmas saw declining hiring plans despite fewer layoffs. Joe Mazzola (Charles Schwab) believes a short shutdown won't have much of an impact, but if it's prolonged and delays the inflation release, the Fed could hold off on cutting interest rates at the end of October. However, money markets are still almost fully pricing in a 25-bps cut at the end of the month and another in December. Commodities: Gold edged up; oil headed for its deepest weekly decline since late June ahead of the OPEC+ meeting. (ads)
Source: Bloomberg
