Asian stock markets on Friday followed Wall Street higher on optimism about US-Chinese talks.
Benchmarks in Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong all advanced.
Traders were encouraged by US President Donald Trump’s plan to meet Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴).
Economists say a final settlement to the sprawling dispute is unlikely this year, but some traders are hoping for a ceasefire on further tariff hikes or other issues.
Markets have soared and fallen during 12 previous rounds of talks that produced no progress toward ending the costly fight over Beijing’s trade surplus and technology ambitions.
“It looks like investors are positioning themselves for a potentially favorable outcome,” said Fawad Razaqzada of Forex.com in a report. “Are investors setting themselves up for disappointment?”
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.9 percent to 2,973.66, up 2.4 percent for the week.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.2 percent to 21,798.87, but over the week it lost 1.8 percent.
The broader TOPIX was up 0.88 percent, or 13.85 points, at 1,595.27, but fell 1.4 percent over the week.
Seoul’s KOSPI rose 0.8 percent to 2,044.61, a weekly increase of 1.2 percent, while Sydney’s S&P ASX 200 added 0.9 percent to 6,606.8, up 1.4 percent for the week.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s battered stocks had their best day in more than a month.
Developer and technology shares were among the best performers as Hong Kong stocks saw the biggest gains in Asia, at the end of a week in which trade headlines roiled markets.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 2.3 percent to 26,308.44, and increased 1.9 percent over the week.
Markets in Taiwan were closed on Thursday and Friday for the extended four-day Double Ten National Day holiday.
Shares on Wednesday moved down more than 1 percent as investors got jittery over the US and China’s high-level trade talks, dealers said.
The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the TAIEX, ended down 127.35 points, or 1.16 percent, at the day’s low of 10,889.96, off an early high of NT$10,989.39.
Turnover was NT$129 billion (US$4.18 billion).
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to