Crude edged higher in early trading, with Brent crude above $89 a barrel, extending its gains. West Texas Intermediate rose 0.6% to $84.08 a barrel.
South Korea’s Kospi, considered the bellwether for AI investment, jumped as much as 15% during the day, an intraday record, bouncing back from three straight days of losses. Chip giants SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics both climbed more than 25%.
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Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained over 5%, and the Topix rose 1.9%, pushing the regional MSCI Asia Pacific index up 2.6%. Hang Seng futures added 0.5%, and S&P 500 futures rose 0.3% by 9.37 am Tokyo time.
The Japanese yen weakened, handing back some of the gains it made during Thursday’s currency intervention. The yen fell 0.5% to 160.40 per dollar, after strengthening to as much as 157.98 the day before, while the offshore yuan stayed steady near 6.7489 per dollar.
The gains in Asia followed a strong rebound on Wall Street, where a gauge of chip stocks posted its biggest one-day rise in more than a year. Apple fell over 6% in after-hours trading after supply shortages hurt its sales forecast, while Amazon jumped 9.5% as its cloud business grew for a fifth straight quarter. A day earlier, Microsoft shares had surged 16%, adding about $450 billion to its value, the largest single-day gain ever recorded by a stock.
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The rally gave tech stocks a break after the Nasdaq 100 fell for six sessions in a row on investor concerns that heavy spending on AI might not prove productive.
The dollar remained weak after the Fed left rates unchanged, while the yen jumped. Long-term Treasury yields touched fresh multi-year highs, extending a rise triggered by the Fed’s decision to hold rates despite elevated inflation.
With the Bank of England holding rates steady on Thursday, markets now turn their attention to the Bank of Japan, which is expected to leave rates unchanged on Friday.
