View over Victoria terminus or Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus (CST) and central Mumbai at dusk Mumbai India
Peter Adams | Stone | Getty Images
India’s benchmark indexes hit a record high Thursday as Asia-Pacific markets tracked Wall Street gains on Fed rate-cut hopes and tech rebound.
The Nifty 50 hit 26,284.2, while the BSE Sensex reached 86,026.18. Both the indexes had last hit record highs in September 2024.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed 1.23% higher at 50,167.1, led by tech stocks, while the Topix index added 0.39% to 3,368.57. Among the top movers were Advantest, up 4.88%, tech conglomerate SoftBank Group soared 3.57% and Lasertec, which was up 4.6%.
South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.66% to 3,986.91, while the small-cap Kosdaq climbed 0.31% to 880.06. The Bank of Korea kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2.5% — in line with expectations — for a fourth consecutive policy meeting, amid a weakened local currency and overheated housing market. The Korean won has weakened against the greenback in recent months to its lowest level since April.
Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 rose 0.13% to close at 8,617.3.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and mainland’s CSI 300 closed flat at 25,945.93 and 4,515.4, respectively.
China’s industrial profits in October plunged 5.5% from a year earlier, government data showed Thursday. Profits for the first 10 months of the year rose 1.9% year on year, compared to the 3.2% rise in the January to September period.
Overnight, the key indexes in the U.S. logged four straight days of gains on rising hopes for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in December. Investors see an 85% chance of a quarter-percentage-point rate cut in December, up from 30% last week, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Shares of artificial intelligence player Oracle jumped more than 4% on Wednesday, boosting major averages after Deutsche Bank reaffirmed its bullish stance on the name.
On Wednesday stateside, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 314.67 points, or 0.67%, to finish at 47,427.12. The S&P 500 climbed 0.69% to settle at 6,812.61, while the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.82% to close at 23,214.69.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.
