A currency dealer monitors exchange rates in front of a big screen showing South Korea’s benchmark stock index (C) and the Korean won\/USD exchange rate (R) in a foreign exchange dealing room at the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul on April 9, 2025.<\/p>\n
Jung Yeon-je | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n
South Korea and Japan stocks hit record highs Wednesday amid gains in the region, after a tech-driven rally on Wall Street that was fueled by easing\u00a0concerns around artificial intelligence-led disruption<\/a> to select industries.<\/p>\n Japan’s Nikkei 225<\/a> jumped more than 2% to close at a fresh high of 58,583.12, while the Topix added 0.71% to 3,843.16.<\/p>\n Similarly, South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.91% to breach the 6,000 mark for the first time. The index closed at 6,083.86. Index heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics rose 0.6% and 0.88%, respectively.<\/p>\n The small-cap Kosdaq added 0.02% to 1,165.25.<\/p>\n Australia’s\u00a0S&P\/ASX 200<\/a> climbed 1.17% to end the trading day at 9,128.3.<\/p>\n Hong Kong Hang Seng index<\/a> rose 0.45%, while mainland’s CSI 300 added 0.6% to 4,735.89.<\/p>\n Taiwan’s benchmark stock index rose 1.8% to a record high for the fifth straight session.<\/p>\n Bitcoin<\/a> jumped about 2%, back to $65,000 levels after sliding below $63,000 briefly on Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n “The global economy appears to be on slightly firmer footing as the effects of fiscal and monetary policy continue to support activity.\u00a0Financial markets, however, have struggled to establish a clear direction amid several headwinds,” BMI said in a report on Wednesday, in reference to the AI-driven whipsaws lately in addition to heightened geopolitical risks.<\/p>\n “We assign a 50% probability to a US-led military attack on Iran, which is contributing to an elevated risk premium in oil prices and, to some extent, US dollar strength,” BMI’s analysts said.<\/p>\n Investors are also assessing U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.<\/p>\n “We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words: we will never have a nuclear weapon. My preference is to solve this through diplomacy,” Trump said during the address.<\/p>\n The U.S. West Texas Intermediate \u200bcrude futures were up 0.72% at $66.1 per barrel, while Brent Crude futures rose 0.73% to $71.29 per barrel.<\/p>\n Overnight in the U.S., equities rose, led by gains in\u00a0Advanced Micro Devices<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0software stocks<\/a>. Shares of AMD jumped 8.8% after\u00a0Meta Platforms<\/a>\u00a0announced a\u00a0multiyear deal with the semiconductor company<\/a>. <\/p>\n The new partnership entails deploying up to 6 gigawatts of AMD’s graphics processing units for AI data centers. Meta will also invest in AMD through a performance-based warrant for up to 160 million shares of the chipmaker.<\/p>\n The move comes a week after Meta\u00a0said it’s using millions<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0Nvidia<\/a>\u00a0chips in its data center buildout. Shares of the AI chip darling rose 0.7%.<\/p>\n The\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0advanced 0.77% to close at 6,890.07, while the\u00a0Nasdaq Composite<\/a>\u00a0rose 1.04% and settled at 22,863.68. <\/p>\n The\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0added 370.44 points, or 0.76%, and ended at 49,174.50. The 30-stock index was supported by a nearly 2% rise in\u00a0Home Depot<\/a>\u00a0shares after the company’s earnings\u00a0beat expectations for the first time in a year<\/a>.\u00a0IBM<\/a>\u00a0shares, which\u00a0tumbled in the prior trading day<\/a>\u00a0as a result of aforementioned AI fears, also added to the Dow’s gains.<\/p>\n \u2014CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Sarah Min contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A currency dealer monitors exchange rates in front of a big screen showing South Korea’s benchmark stock index…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":614899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[263658,259682,9203,8000,49186,4740,8186,133,148,64,81,960,26041,69,250645,250643,250642,7994,37925,8116,259093,250818,83029,262486,83030,262487,49928,263659,250817,170,64216,135,3747,14229,7997,147,15242,263657,15243,250644,48565,259091,20677,149,181627,67,261697,259090,132,68],"class_list":["post-614898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-cl26j","tag-lco26n","tag-advanced-micro-devices-inc","tag-asia-economy","tag-asml-holding-nv","tag-australia","tag-bitcoin-usd-coin-metrics","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-broadcom-inc","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-chicago","tag-crowdstrike-holdings-inc","tag-donald-trump","tag-fidelity-nasdaq-composite-index-track","tag-fidelity-wise-origin-bitcoin-fund","tag-grayscale-bitcoin-trust-etf","tag-hang-seng-index","tag-home-depot-inc","tag-international-business-machines-corp","tag-invesco-db-oil-fund","tag-invesco-qqq-trust","tag-ishares-china-large-cap-etf","tag-ishares-msci-australia-etf","tag-ishares-msci-china-etf","tag-ishares-msci-hong-kong-etf","tag-ishares-msci-japan-etf","tag-ishares-msci-south-korea-etf","tag-ishares-semiconductor-etf","tag-japan","tag-lp","tag-markets","tag-meta-platforms-inc","tag-microsoft-corp","tag-nikkei-225-index","tag-nvidia-corp","tag-osaka","tag-proshares-ultra-bloomberg-crude-oil","tag-south-korea","tag-spdr-dow-jones-industrial-average-etf-trust","tag-spdr-sp-homebuilders-etf","tag-spdr-sp-semiconductors","tag-super-micro-computer-inc","tag-taiwan-semiconductor-manufacturing-co-ltd","tag-technology-select-sector-spdr-fund","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-brent-oil-fund","tag-united-states-oil-fund","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}