Asian stocks were a mixed bag on Tuesday, with Japan and South Korea extending gains as a rebound in technology shares persisted, while China continued to lag on concerns over sluggish growth.
Regional markets took a positive lead-in from Wall Street, which rose sharply as tech shares recouped a measure of last week’s losses, while optimism over an end to a long-running U.S. government shutdown also helped.
S&P 500 Futures rose 0.1% in Asian trade, rising marginally after the U.S. Senate approved a bill aimed at ending the shutdown.
Nikkei, KOSPI up as tech extends rebound
Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.6%, while South Korea’s KOSPI jumped 1.5%, as both indexes benefited from an extended rebound in technology shares.
Tech shares recovered sharply from steep losses last week, as investors appeared to have looked past concerns over inflated valuations and an artificial intelligence-driven bubble.
South Korean chipmakers SK Hynix Inc (KS:000660) and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KS:005930) jumped nearly 4% each, and were the top boosts to the KOSPI.
In Japan, SoftBank Group Corp. (TYO:9984) rose 3% before the tech conglomerate’s September quarter earnings, which are due later in the day.
Electronics conglomerate Sony Corp (TYO:6758) rose 0.4% as its September quarter earnings beat expectations, while the company also hiked its annual profit forecast.
China continues to lag on economic jitters
China’s Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite indexes fell 0.7% and 0.4%, respectively, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index shed 0.2%.
Source : Investing.com