The Hang Seng slipped 224 points, or 0.9%, to close early at 25,630 on the final trading day of 2025, as markets closed early ahead of the New Year. The index reversed the prior session's strength as losses spread across all sectors, with tech, consumer, and financial stocks leading the declines. Still, the index posted a second straight annual gain, climbing nearly 28% in 2025. The rally was boosted by a buoyant IPO market in Hong Kong, easing U.S. China trade tensions, and Beijing's pledge to support economic growth through proactive fiscal spending and accommodative monetary...
Japanese stock indexes rose in recent trading, following Wall Street's recent record highs. This rise was supported by expectations that the Fed will maintain its loose monetary policy in the near term. The technology, metals, and electronics sectors led the gains, with SoftBank Group shares surging 4.9%, Sumitomo Metal Mining up 4.7%, and Hitachi Ltd. gaining 3.2%. In the foreign exchange market, USD/JPY traded around 155.58, slightly weakening from 156.09 at the close of trading in Tokyo on Thursday, reflecting slightly more positive sentiment towards the yen. Investors are also starting...
Asian stocks opened higher on Friday (December 12) morning after Wall Street and global equity indexes set new records. The MSCI Asia Stock Index rose about 0.5% early in the session, with the Japanese and Australian benchmarks gaining about 1%. Positive sentiment stemmed from the Fed's third consecutive interest rate cut, which encouraged investors to venture into riskier assets. Among leading stocks, SoftBank Group surged more than 5% after news that the company was considering potential acquisitions, including data center operator Switch Inc. In the US, the S&P 500 closed up 0.2% on...
The Dow jumped more than 600 points to a fresh record and the S&P 500 reversed early session losses to trade marginally higher, while the Nasdaq pared losses to roughly 0.5% on Thursday afternoon as investors rotated out of richly valued tech names and into cyclicals and beaten down value stocks after the Fed cut rates by 25 basis points to 3.50% to 3.75% and signalled a conditional easing path. Visa rose over 5% on an upgrade by Bank of America, while Mastercard and American Express added more than 4% and 1.5% respectively. Major names including JPMorgan (+2.2%), UnitedHealth (+3.1%),...
European shares closed higher on Thursday after a series of lukewarm sessions, as investors welcomed the U.S. Federal Reserve's overnight interest rate cut and assessed a policy decision from the Swiss National Bank. The pan-European STOXX 600 ended 0.5% higher at 581.17 points, after a muted start to the session amid renewed worries about lofty tech valuations following cloud computing giant Oracle's hefty AI spending plans. Major regional bourses were broadly higher, with France's CAC 40 up 0.8% and London's FTSE 100 up 0.5%. In the STOXX 600, at least 19 sectors were in the green, with...
Both the STOXX 50 and the STOXX 600 slipped 0.2% on Thursday, marking a third straight session of losses for the former. Weak sales and profit forecasts from Oracle weighed on the tech sector, overshadowing relief from the Federal Reserve's latest interest rate cut and its signal that one more reduction is expected in 2026. Tech shares were broadly lower, with ASML Holding down 1.2%, SAP off 2.8%, Infineon Technologies slipping 0.6%, and Dassault Systèmes easing 0.4%. Ocado Group dropped more than 4.5%, pulling back after strong gains in the previous session, while Sartorius declined 2%....