Global stocks build on tech-fuelled rally as oil retreats: Markets Wrap
Asian stocks were on course for their biggest two-day advance in more than three months as a resurgent tech rally and falling oil prices lifted sentiment.
MSCI Inc.’s gauge of regional equities climbed 1.8%. That’s after US benchmarks capped their best session in about seven months on Monday, as dip buyers stepped in following last week’s technology-led selloff. South Korea’s Kospi Index jumped 4% to be the top performer in Asia on Tuesday, followed by benchmarks in Japan and Taiwan. Futures for the S&P 500 Index edged up 0.1%, while those for the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2%.
Elsewhere, Brent crude slipped further to trade below $92 a barrel after slumping almost 6% on Monday to close at its lowest since August. President Donald Trump said further strikes on Iran wouldn’t be necessary, an indication that he’s winding down the conflict after the US midterm results underscored its unpopularity.
The Nasdaq 100 climbed 3.4% on Monday and a gauge of chip stocks in the US surged nearly 7%. That’s even as Nvidia Corp. slid 4.3% amid a probe into Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang after his admission of an affair with a woman identified in a series of reports as a suspected Chinese spy.
The rally in global tech stocks follows a tumultuous week that saw chipmakers bear the brunt of a selloff sparked by worries that the Democrats’ sweep of Congress in the US midterms may lead to tougher oversight of the AI sector. The durability of the rebound remains in question, with regulatory risks now layered on top of concerns that were weighing on the sector—stretched valuations, soaring capital spending and uncertainty over the payoff from massive AI investments.
“The sharp drop in oil prices has given markets some much-needed breathing room. It’s eased some of the inflation pressure,” said Dilin Wu, a strategist at Pepperstone Group. “We still need to see whether buying interest can hold up. The selling may have eased, but the questions around AI spending and returns haven’t gone away.”
In another AI-related development, Anthropic PBC could begin formally marketing its much-anticipated IPO as early as Tuesday, enabling it to make the case to investors that now is the right time to go public. The creator of the Claude chatbot sent out and retracted a filing that appeared to show it was aiming to raise as much as $69.3 billion through the IPO, Reuters reported.
- Nvidia Corp.’s general counsel intervened in a US government probe of suspected smuggling of AI chips by Megaspeed International, questioning whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining an executive from the Singapore-based firm who’s now at the heart of a scandal threatening Jensen Huang.
- Anthropic PBC is planning a live-streamed event, at which co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei will discuss the initial public offering with JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, according to a person familiar with the matter.
- Honda Motor Co. plans to build a $3 billion factory in Ohio to manufacture its next-generation hybrids, boosting its output capacity for the popular vehicles.
- Alphabet Inc.’s Google is rolling out a broader array of AI chips, aiming to capitalize on its rapid ascent as a challenger to Nvidia in a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
- Boeing Co. will cut 5% of its commercial airplane workforce after delaying production increases, the US planemaker’s first job reduction in nearly two years and a sign that its turnaround is far from complete.
- Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser said a securities license in China completes the bank’s product offering there and gives it an edge over competitors.
- Japanese government-backed startup Rapidus Corp. has fallen behind schedule on its high-stakes pledge to mass produce cutting-edge chips by March 2028 and may no longer be able to make that deadline.
On the economic front, China’s trade surplus ballooned to just over $1 trillion for the year despite the biggest surge in imports since 2021, with exports growing faster than 35% for a second month.
Investors will be watching October US consumer prices data, which is slated to be released Tuesday and is expected to show smaller increases than in September.
The 10-year Treasury yield was down one basis point at 4.87%. A gauge of the dollar was little changed after falling 0.5% on Monday.
“US Treasuries have remained the better daily hedge against equity risk since 2020, while gold’s haven role has shifted towards bond risk,” Morgan Stanley strategists including Serena Tang wrote in a report.
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