BANGKOK (AP) – World shares were mixed yesterday after China rolled out more moves to try to boost its lagging stock markets by raising confidence that prices will rise.
Germany’s DAX gained 0.2 per cent to 21,300 and the CAC 40 in Paris edged 0.1 per cent higher to 7,847.38. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped less than 0.1 per cent to 8,539.88.
The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.2 per cent while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down less than 0.1 per cent.
Officials in Beijing said Chinese pension funds and mutual funds would be required to increase purchases of shares, to guarantee that market value rises. Listed companies will also be encouraged to do more stock buybacks and raise dividends to improve shareholder returns, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission Wu Qing told reporters.
Share prices in Shanghai bounced higher, closing up 0.5 per cent at 3,230.16. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped after initial gains, losing 0.4 per cent to 19,700.56.
“The relief over Donald Trump not announcing new tariffs on China during his inauguration didn’t last long,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya of Swissquote Bank said in a commentary, noting the United States (US) president’s comment that he still plans new 10 per cent tariffs on imports of Chinese goods. With buying enthusiasm weak, “the shooting star pattern of today hints that sentiment remains bearish for Chinese equities”, she wrote.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index gained 0.8 per cent to 39,958.87, helped by gains in technology shares, including those of SoftBank Group Corp. It is investing heavily in Stargate, a joint venture the White House has announced will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of artificial intelligence (AI).
The partnership formed by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank is due to invest up to USD500 billion. SoftBank’s shares rose 5.1 per cent yesterday in Tokyo trading after jumping 11 per cent the day before.
Fuji Media Holdings dropped 7.8 per cent after Masahiro Nakai, one of Japan’s top TV hosts and a former pop star, said yesterday he was retiring to take responsibility over assault allegations that are part of a wave roiling Japan’s entertainment industry. The Fuji TV scandal triggered an avalanche of lost advertising at one of the networks where he worked.
Elsewhere in Asia, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia fell 0.6 per cent to 8,378.70, while the Kospi in Seoul lost 1.2 per cent to 2,515.49.
India’s Sensex rose 0.3 per cent while the SET in Bangkok shed 0.7 per cent.
On Wednesday, Netflix, Oracle and other big technology stocks lifted Wall Street on Wednesday as their profits pile higher and excitement builds around the moneymaking prospects of AI.
Oracle added 6.8 per cent and Nvidia, the company whose chips are powering much of the move into AI, rose 4.4 per cent.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6 per cent and the Dow added 0.3 per cent. The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.3 per cent.
The gains came even though most US stocks fell under the weight of higher Treasury yields.
The smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index lost 0.6 per cent, for example, and roughly two out of every three stocks in the S&P 500 sank. But gains for big, influential stocks were more than enough to make up for it.
Netflix jumped 9.7 per cent after it said live events like football games and a Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight helped it add nearly 19 million subscribers during the latest quarter.
In the cryptocurrency market, where prices have surged on hopes President Donald Trump will make Washington friendlier to the industry, bitcoin was sitting just above USD102,000, according to CoinDesk. It had set a record above USD109,000 on Monday.
Some sourness lingers Trump and his wife launched meme coins, which critics said looked like an unseemly cash grab.
In other dealings early Thursday, US benchmark crude oil shed 16 cents to USD75.28 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 13 cents to USD78.87 per barrel.
The dollar rose to JPY156.53 from JPY156.43. The euro fell to USD1.0398 from USD1.0411.
