Stock market today: Asian shares mostly gain after Wall St rallies to new records
BANGKOK– Stocks were mainly higher in Asia on Tuesday after US shares rallied to more records, with gains for technology companies pushing benchmarks higher.
US futures were flat and oil prices fell.
This week features few top-level economic reports, aside from an update on Tuesday on how much US consumers are spending at US retailers and a preliminary look on Friday at the state of US business activity. US markets are closed on Wednesday for the Juneteenth holiday.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index rose 1% to 38,482.11. Toyota engine Corp., a market heavyweight, gained 0.5% after shareholders rejected a proposal to force Akio Toyoda, grandson of the automaker’s founder, to leave his post as chairman of the board.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.1% to 17,913.34 and the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.4% to 3,028.34.
In South Korea, the Kospi rose 0.7% to 2,763.92.
In Sydney the S&The P/ASX 200 rose 1% to 7,778.10 after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its key interest rate unchanged.
“Although the Bank noted at its May meeting that inflation had fallen more gradually than expected, it today described it as ‘persistent’, stressing that both headline inflation and inflation excluding volatile items and travel will not continue further between April and December had fallen. ‘, Capital Economics said in a commentary.
The central bank noted that “momentum in economic activity is weak,” with the statement citing sluggish GDP growth, a rise in unemployment and slower-than-expected wage growth,” the central bank said.
The Indian Sensex rose 0.3% to 77,218.48.
On Monday, US stocks rose to records as gains for technology companies continued to push the market higher.
The S&The P500 rose 0.8%, surpassing Thursday’s record. It closed at 5,473.23. The Dow Jones index rose 0.5% to 38,778.10, and the Nasdaq index rose 1% to 17,857.02.
Autodesk rose 6.5%, one of the market’s biggest gains, after an investment firm said it will seek to postpone the software company’s annual meeting so it can appoint new directors to the board.
Just behind Autodesk was chip company Broadcom, which rose 5.4% to add to last week’s gains after it reported better-than-expected earnings and said it would undergo a 10-for-one stock split to make its price more affordable. Broadcom followed Nvidiathe company that has become the poster child for Wall Street’s frenzy surrounding artificial intelligence technology and has just completed a similar split.
Apple gained 2% and Microsoft climbed 1.2%.
Super Micro Computer, which sells server and storage systems used in artificial intelligence and other computing, rose 5.1% to take its year-to-date gain to a staggering 212.2%.
The gains for tech helped offset stock market pressures caused by rising Treasury yields in the bond market. The rise in yields has wiped out some of the slack that emerged last week when yields were better than expected reports on inflation hoped the Federal Reserve would do so reduce interest rates later this year.
The yield on the 10-year government bond rose to 4.28% from 4.22% at the end of Friday. The yield on two-year government bonds, which better tracks expectations for the Fed, rose from 4.71% to 4.76%.
The Fed is trying to keep rates high long enough to slow the economy and eliminate high inflation, but it wants to cut rates and reverse momentum before the slowdown turns into a painful recession.
High interest rates This has negative consequences for all kinds of investments, and some areas tend to be hit particularly hard. Utilities in the S&The P 500 fell 1.1%, which was Monday’s biggest loss among the 11 sectors that make up the index. They often get hurt when bonds pay out more interest and pull away income-seeking investors who might otherwise gravitate toward dividend-paying utility stocks.
GameStop was again a laggard, falling 12.1% after the annual shareholders meeting. The stock has risen and fallen as it rides waves of enthusiasm by investors with smaller wallets. During the meeting, CEO Ryan Cohen said the struggling video game retailer will focus on cutting costs, which would entail a “smaller network of stores.”
In other trades, benchmark U.S. crude lost 17 cents to $80.16 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude lost 11 cents above $81.44 a barrel.
The dollar rose from 156.38 yen to 157.65 Japanese yen. The euro traded at $1.0724, from $1.0702.