HONG KONG (AP) – World markets mostly rose yesterday following gains on Wall Street driven by Tesla, IBM and Meta Platforms after strong profit reports.
European markets opened higher after the European Central Bank cut its key interest rate to by a quarter-point to 2.75 per cent on Thursday. France’s CAC 40 rose 0.2 per cent in early trading to 7,958.35, while Germany’s DAX was flat at 7,958.35. Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.2 per cent to 8,667.17.
S&P 500 futures increased 0.4 per cent and those for the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2 per cent.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index edged 0.2 per cent higher to 39,572.49.
Japan’s core inflation rate, a key indicator of national trends, rose to 2.5 per cent in January, surpassing the central bank’s two per cent target and paving the way for further interest rate hikes. Meanwhile, Japan’s unemployment rate for December declined to 2.4 per cent from 2.5 per cent in the previous month.
The Kospi in South Korea fell 0.8 per cent to 2,517.37 as trading resumed yesterday after the holidays, during which Chinese startup DeepSeek stirred panic in the AI world. Shares of SK Hynix, a major supplier to Nvidia Corp, plummeted by 9.9 per cent. Another tech giant, Samsung, lost 2.4 per cent.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.5 per cent to 8,532.30. In Bangkok, the SET was down 1.6 per cent.
Markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai remain closed for the lunar new year holidays.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose 0.5 per cent to 6,071.17 as four out of every five stocks in the index climbed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.4 per cent to 44,882.13, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.3 per cent to 19,681.75.
Meta Platforms helped push indexes higher by rising 1.6 per cent. The company behind Facebook and Instagram delivered a better profit for the end of 2024 than analysts expected. Perhaps just as importantly for the market, it also talked up its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts and said it will continue to invest in the space.
That calmed some of the worries created by DeepSeek when it said it developed a large language model capable of competing with the world’s best without having to use top-flight chips. That raised questions about whether all the investment expected for AI chips, data centres and electricity is really needed and sent a shock through markets at the start of the week.
The AI boom has been a primary reason for the United States (US) stock market’s run to repeated records, and the threat has hit stocks like Nvidia particularly hard. The chip company that’s become the symbol of the AI frenzy spent most of Thursday lower but ended with a gain of one per cent and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.
Keeping indexes in check was Microsoft, which fell 6.2 per cent. The Redmond, Washington-based software giant topped analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter, but the focus was instead on the slower-than-expected growth in its cloud computing business, which is a centerpiece of its AI efforts.
Treasury yields held relatively steady on Thursday after a report indicated the US economy grew at a solid pace at the end of 2024, but slightly slower than economists expected. The 10-year Treasury yield edged down to 4.52 per cent from 4.53 per cent late Wednesday.
The report showed a ‘Goldilocks’ economy at the turn of the year, one that was neither too hot nor too cold, according to Chief economist at EY Gregory Daco. But he warned many uncertainties in Washington could change things, including what it does with income tax rates, tariffs and immigration.
In energy trading, benchmark US crude added 16 cents to USD72.89 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 10 cents to USD75.99 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose to JPY154.64 from JPY154.18. The euro cost USD1.0389, down from USD1.0392.
