Asian stocks edge higher; Japan’s Nikkei in sight of record high
Investing.com-- Most Asian stocks rose on Friday tracking a strong lead-in from Wall Street, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 index extended its run of strong gains and was now trading within spitting distance of a record high.
Wall Street bourses ended higher in overnight trade, aided by strong gains in the energy sector as oil prices rebounded. Data showing an unexpected drop in retail sales through January also fueled some hopes for early interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, although later comments from Fed officials dismissed this notion.
S&P 500 and Dow futures fell slightly in Asian trade, while Nasdaq 100 Futures rose 0.1%, as technology stocks remained buoyed by increased hype over artificial intelligence development.
This trend was also reflected in Asian markets, with tech-heavy bourses clocking the strongest gains. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index and South Korea’s KOSPI both added 0.7%, gains in the tech sector helped Australia’s ASX 200 rise 0.5%.
Hype over AI rose after ChatGPT creator OpenAI revealed a new AI platform, “Sora,” which is capable of creating detailed videos based on text prompts. But the software is still in an early stage.
Chipmaking stocks were by far the biggest benefactors of this trend, with Asian majors- particularly TSMC (TW:2330) (NYSE:TSM), the world’s largest contract chipmaker by output, sitting on an over 10% gain this week. The stock was also trading close to a record high hit earlier in the week.
The Nikkei 225 trimmed some of its earlier gains on Friday, but was still trading up 0.8% at 38,485.0 points by 21:13 ET (02:13 GMT). The index was at a 34-year high, and was trading just below a lifetime peak of 38,915 points.
Gains were led chiefly by heavyweight technology, chipmaking
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