Japan and Aussie stocks rise after Wall Street declines overnight; most Asia markets closed for holiday

Amala Balakrishner@in/amala-balakrishner@_amalabk

Key Points

• Australian and Japanese stocks extend gains from the previous session.
• Shares in SoftBank Group dip following news of its talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI.
• Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China markets are closed for Lunar New Year holidays.

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 gained 0.21% while the broader Topix index was up 0.18% in choppy trading.

Shares in investment holding company SoftBank Group were down 1.22%, following news that it was in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI. Japanese tech stocks continued to advance: Advantest rose 3.46% while Tokyo Electron gained 1.79%.

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 were up 0.75%, following the announcement.

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 advanced 0.47%, while the BSE Sensex Index gained 0.2%.

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.

Source : cnbc