Asian benchmarks mostly decline as markets await Nvidia earnings

TOKYO — Asian shares were mostly lower on Wednesday despite a record high on Wall Street, as investors eagerly awaited Nvidia’s earnings report.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell nearly 0.3% to 38,188.50 in morning trading.

Shares of Toyota rose more than 3% after Japanese media reported that Japan’s largest automaker would announce a fuel cell partnership with European automaker BMW.

Fuel cell vehicles are ecological and run on electricity produced when hydrogen and oxygen fuse to form water. Japanese business daily Nikkei reported that a partnership will be announced next week.

Toyota Motor Corp., often criticized for lagging behind global development of electric vehicles, has long been a proponent of fuel cells.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.6% to 8,024.70. Australia’s inflation index for July fell less than expected, 3.5% from a year earlier.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.5% to 2,674.72

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, which has risen steadily in recent sessions, fell 0.8% to 17,735.39, as analysts say China’s stronger-than-expected industrial profits reported this week will not be enough to sustain optimism. The Shanghai Composite fell 0.3% to 2,839.34.

All eyes are on Nvidia’s upcoming earnings report. Big tech companies like Nvidia have become extremely influential, if not overly so, recently, with the total market value of the artificial intelligence company topping $3 trillion.

Nvidia reports its latest results on Wednesday, rising 1.5% on Tuesday and gaining 159% this year.

“That’s the big question, and I think all eyes are going to be on Nvidia when they report this week,” said Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “That’s kind of the elephant in the room, so to speak, that a lot of investors are going to be focused on.”

Expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut its key interest rate at its next meeting in September are also high on investors’ agendas. Investors are looking ahead to Friday, when the U.S. government releases its latest inflation data, the Personal Consumers and Expenditures Report (PCE) for July.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 9 points, or less than 0.1%, good enough for its second all-time high in two days. The index is on an eight-day winning streak.

The standard S&The P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed 0.2% higher each after trading between small gains and losses for most of the day. The benchmark S&The P500 is now within 0.8% of its record high last month. Slightly more stocks closed lower than those that gained on the New York Stock Exchange.

In a bit of positive news, the Conference Board, a business research group, said the U.S. consumer confidence index rose to 103.3 in August from 101.9 in July. Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70% of U.S. economic activity.

All in all, the S&The P 500 rose 8.96 points to 5,625.80. The Dow rose 9.98 points to 41,250.50 and the Nasdaq gained 29.05 points to close at 17,754.82.

Treasury yields remained stable in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.83% from 3.82% Monday night.

In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude rose 22 cents to $75.75 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 25 cents to $79.80 a barrel.

In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 144.35 Japanese yen from 143.91 yen. The euro was worth $1.1179, down from $1.1188.

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AP Business Writers Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga contributed. Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama