Asia-Pacific markets advanced in early deals on Thursday, mirroring Wall Street’s gains as investors shrugged off trade concerns and focused on corporate earnings.
By 11:20 am AEDT (12:20 am GMT) Australia’s ASX 200 rose 0.9%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.4%, while South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.5%.
Automakers Nissan and Honda remained in focus following reports that Nissan may abandon merger discussions initiated in late December.
Nissan added 4.8% while Honda lost 3.9% on Japan's Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Overnight, major U.S. indices posted gains for the second consecutive session, even as tech giants Alphabet and AMD faced sell-offs after earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 317.2 points, or 0.7%, to close at 44,873.3, the S&P 500 added 0.4% to finish at 6,061.5, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.2% to 19,692.3.
Nvidia surged over 5% after Super Micro Computer reported full-scale production availability of its AI data centre using Nvidia’s Blackwell platform.
Super Micro Computer rose around 8% on the news.
In commodities, Brent crude oil declined 1.9% to US$74.75 per barrel, while gold climbed 0.67% to $2,861.86 per ounce.
Chinese equities had a mixed performance, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.6% to 3,229.49, while the CSI 300 fell 0.6% to 3,795.1.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declined 0.9% to 20,597.1.
In India, the BSE SENSEX dropped 0.4% to 78,271.3.
Stocks in the U.K. ended in positive territory, with the FTSE 100 Index rising 0.6% to 8,623.3. Meanwhile, Germany’s DAX gained 0.4% to close at 21,585.9, while France’s CAC 40 edged down 0.2% to 7,891.7.
