Stock market today: Asian shares mostly higher, though China benchmarks falter

Asian markets headed higher on Tuesday after another day of gains on Wall Street, although Hong Kong’s benchmark faltered.

US futures were essentially flat and oil prices rose slightly.

The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo, reopening after a national holiday, rose 1.6% to 38,835.10. Gains were led by semiconductor companies such as Tokyo Electron, which closed 4.8% higher, and Advantest, which rose 2.2%.

South Korea’s Kospi rose 2.1% to 2,731.83, helped by big tech companies such as Samsung Electronics, which gained 4.5%, and smaller rival SK Hynix, which added 3.7%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.5% to 18,470.90. But the Shanghai Composite index recovered from early losses to gain 0.3% to 3,148.56.

The Australian S&The P/ASX 200 rose 1.3% to 7,781.70 after the central bank decided to leave interest rates unchanged at 4.35%.

While the Reserve Bank of Australia has likely set the bar high for any rate hikes, it “will likely need to see several more months of soft data before it feels confident it can ease policy settings.” All things considered, rate cuts will likely take longer to materialize than most expect,” Abhijit Surya of Capital Economics said in a commentary.

Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.6%, while India’s Sensex lost 0.7% as the country entered the third phase of the weeks-long national election process.

On Monday the S&The P500 rose 1% to 5,180.74. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% to 38,852.27, and the Nasdaq composite rose 1.2% to 16,349.25.

Technology stocks led the way, with well-known leaders Nvidia and Super Micro Computer once again pulling the market higher. They’ve had a few hiccups lately, but the frenzy around artificial intelligence technology has Nvidia up 86.1% so far this year, following Monday’s gain of 3.8%. Super Micro is up 192.1% after gaining 6.1%.

Berkshire Hathaway added 1% after Warren Buffett’s company reported its latest quarterly results this weekend.

It helped offset a 9.7% decline for Spirit Airlines, which reported a slightly bigger loss than expected. The airline said it faces increasing competition in many of its markets, especially between the United States and Latin America.

Apple fell 0.9% after Berkshire Hathaway revealed it had reduced its stake in the tech giant.

The US stock market has been moving since its record high in late March. It slumped for weeks on fears that stubbornly high inflation would prevent or at least delay the Federal Reserve from making the rate cuts Wall Street craves.

But markets found a burst of optimism late last week after a cooler-than-expected jobs report. It suggested that the US economy could walk the tightrope by remaining strong enough to avoid a severe recession, but not so firm that it puts too much upward pressure on inflation.

Traders are betting there is a nearly 89% chance that the Fed will cut its key interest rate at least once before the end of the year, according to data from CME Group. That’s an increase from the 81.6% probability seen a week earlier. Lower interest rates would help alleviate pressure on the economy and the financial system.

Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle said he still expects two rate cuts this year, in July and November, after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell “pushed back sharply on the possibility of further rate hikes” during his press conference last week.

This week is relatively quiet. The majority of companies in the S&The P500 have already reported their earnings for the first three months of the year, with more than three-quarters beating earnings expectations, according to FactSet.

But there are still some big names on the way, including The Walt Disney Co. and Uber Technologies.

Corporate earnings reports are better than expected not only in the United States, but also in Europe and Japan, according to Deutsche Bank strategists. Global earnings growth is on track for the second quarter in a row, after four consecutive declines.

In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude added 24 cents to $78.72 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Monday the price rose by 37 cents.

Brent crude, the international standard, also rose 24 cents to $83.57 a barrel.

The dollar rose from 153.90 yen to 154.49 Japanese yen. The euro was virtually unchanged at $1.0769.