Japan and Australian stocks rose Wednesday as Wall Street rebounded overnight, while several Asia-Pacific markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Japan benchmark Nikkei 225 ended the day up 1.02% at 39,414.78, while the Topix advanced 0.68% to close at 2,775.59. Japanese tech stocks rebounded after posting losses for several days. Advantest gained 4.36%, Tokyo Electron rose 2.34%, while SoftBank Group advanced 2.43%.
Minutes from the Bank of Japan’s December meeting released Wednesday showed members discussed neutral interest rates. The BOJ has been debating how far borrowing costs should be raised as inflation remains above its 2% target while wage hikes broaden due to labor shortages.
Japan’s central bank had hiked interest rates by 25 basis points to 0.5% in its meeting last week. The move brings its policy level to its highest rate since 2008.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.57% to close at its highest since Dec. 5 at 8,447.
The country’s inflation rose 0.2% in the December quarter and 2.4% annually, below the 2.5% estimated by economists polled by Reuters, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed.
Overnight in the U.S., key indexes recovered some ground from the sell-off sparked by the challenge posed by Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek to the U.S. AI ecosystem.
The S&P 500 advanced 0.92% to 6,067.70, led by gains in technology shares. The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) rose more than 2%, following a 4.9% loss on Monday. The Nasdaq Composite surged 2.03% to 19,733.59, following a 3.1% decline a day ago.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 136.77 points, or 0.31%, to 44,850.35.
All eyes were on Nvidia which picked up momentum to close around nearly 9% higher. The chipmaker lost 17%, or almost $600 billion in market value, in the previous session to clock the biggest ever one-day drop in value for a U.S. company.
Other tech giants like Broadcom and Oracle ended Tuesday’s trading day up 2.6% and 3.6%, respectively, following steep losses Monday.
