Asian shares advanced on Thursday, tracking Wall Street’s rise to records despite the the shutdown of the U.S. government.
Technology shares jumped on expectations of higher demand for computer chips due to a partnership between South Korean tech and OpenAI.
U.S. futures and oil prices also rose.
South Korea’s Kospi climbed 2.9% to 3,555.63 after Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announced their agreement with OpenAI to supply its Stargate data hubs with memory chips.
“We expect export growth to remain resilient, led by higher chip prices, which will likely continue to offset the tariff impact on non-chip sectors such as autos,” the Nomura Group said in a commentary.
Shares in Samsung surged 4.6% while SK Hynix’s shares soared 10.8%. Taiwan-based chip maker TSMC’s shares were up 3.3%, helping lift the Taiex by 1.7%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.3% to 44,675.96, with tech stocks leading gains.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.3% to 27,206.18, while markets in mainland China were closed for an Oct. 1-8 national holiday.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1% to 8,937.10, with gold mining stocks among those leading gains. India’s BSE Sensex added 0.9% after the Reserve Bank of India opted to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged.
On Wednesday, stocks rose to more records in U.S. trading, though yields sank in the bond market following the latest discouraging signals on the economy.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.3% to 6,711.20, topping its prior all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1%, to its own record set the day before, closing at 46,441.10. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.4% to 22,755.16.
“Markets once again proved that they love nothing more than turning a crisis into a stage set for higher prices,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
Employers outside the government actually cut 32,000 more jobs than they added in September, according to the survey by ADP Research, with the Midwest particularly hard hit. The survey also revised down its numbers for employment in August, to a loss of 3,000 jobs from a previously reported gain of 54,000.
Usually, traders on Wall Street wait for a more comprehensive U.S. government jobs report to suss out how the job market is doing. The U.S. government gets its data from a larger sample of employers than the ADP survey.
But the next Labor Department report, scheduled for Friday, is likely to be delayed because of the shutdown of the U.S. government that began just after midnight.
The hope on Wall Street has been that the job market will continue to slow just enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it brings a recession.
That’s a delicate balance to achieve, and every economic report from the U.S. government that gets delayed only increases the uncertainty about whether it’s possible. Stocks have already run to records on expectations for coming cuts to rates, so a lack of them could send the market lower.
In other dealings on Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude oil added 30 cents to $62.08 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, also edged up 30 cents to $65.65 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 147.13 Japanese yen from 147.08 yen. The euro rose to $1.1735 from $1.1731.
The price of gold fell back after surging to fresh highs. As of early Thursday, it was down $6.80 at $3,890.70 per ounce. The precious metal, often used as a safe haven for investments in times of uncertainty, has been steadily climbing for months, gaining more than 37% in the past year.
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AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.
