Shares were mostly higher Thursday in Asia, led by tech-driven gains in Japan and South Korea as major computer chipmakers’ stocks surged following upbeat earnings reports from U.S. giants like Qualcomm and Micron Technology.
Market Update
Qualcomm’s share price surged 12% in after-hours trading after the company announced it had raised its forecast for revenue this year to $40 billion from $22 billion. It also announced a new computer chip for data centers called Dragonfly C1000 CPU that Meta plans to use.
Micron Technology’s shares jumped nearly 16% in after-hours trading after it upgraded its forecast and exceeded analysts’ estimates.
In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index surged 4.1% to 71,995.59 as traders snapped up shares in technology companies. Chipmaker Tokyo Electron’s shares gained 7.1%, while chip testing equipment maker Advantest’s shares soared 13.4%.
South Korea’s benchmark, the Kospi, hit a new record, surging 5.9% to 8,968.22. Samsung Electronics’s shares gained 5.4% and SK Hynix leaped 11.6%.
Elsewhere in Asia, gains were more modest. Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 0.8% and the Sensex in India was up 0.6%. The Shanghai Composite index picked up 0.4% to 4,125.76, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.4% to 23,090.27.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.5% to 8,768.20.
On Wednesday, stocks wavered to a mixed close on Wall Street as losses for several tech giants including Microsoft weighed on the market. The S&P 500 fell 0.1% to 7,358.22. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is less weighted with tech stocks, rose 10.4% to 51,848.90.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 0.4%, to 25,476.64. Microsoft lost 2.3% and Oracle slumped 4.6%.
Oil prices fell more than $1, bringing them closer to where they were before the war with Iran started. Exxon Mobil fell 2% and Chevron lost 2.6%. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 3.8% to $73.87 a barrel.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
