Japanese and Australian markets climbed Thursday, breaking ranks with Wall Street that fell overnight as the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged. Several Asia-Pacific markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 and Topix advanced for the second straight day. The Nikkei 225 gained 0.25% to end the day at 39,513.97 while the broader Topix index was up 0.23% to close at 2,781.93.
Shares in investment holding company SoftBank Group fell 1.06%, following news that it was in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI. Japanese tech stocks continued to advance: Advantest rose 3.22% while Tokyo Electron gained 1.87%.
Meanwhile, Toyota Motor reported sales of 10.8 million vehicles in 2024, enabling it to retain the spot of the world’s top-selling automaker for a fifth straight year. The automaker’s shares rose 0.65%, following the announcement.
Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Ryozo Himino reportedly said Thursday that the central bank would continue to raise interest rates if the “economy and prices move in line with the bank’s forecasts.” The Bank of Japan hiked interest rates by 25 basis points to 0.5% in its meeting last week, bringing them to the highest level since 2008.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 extended gains from the previous session to end the day up 0.55% at 8,493.70, its highest since Dec. 5.
Australia’s export price index climbed 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2024, but fell 8.6% through the year, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed. Its import price index rose 0.2% in the same quarter, but fell 1.9% through the year. These indexes reflect the changes in prices of exports from and imports into the country.
India’s benchmark Nifty 50 was up 0.44%, while the BSE Sensex Index had gained 0.29% as of 1 p.m. local time.
Overnight in the U.S., benchmark indexes fell after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged in its first policy decision of the year on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 slid 0.47% to close at 6,039.31, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.51% to end at 19,632.32. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 136.83 points, or 0.31%, to 44,713.52.
Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia lost 4.1%, after a strong showing in the previous session.
The chipmaker’s shares hit session lows after reports from Bloomberg News that Trump administration officials had discussed curbing its chip sales to China following the challenge posed by the country’s DeepSeek AI model.
— CNBC’s Lisa Kailan Han and Brian Evans contributed to this report.
Source: CNBC