Australia markets rise; Japan to open higher


Cityscape image of Sydney, Australia with Harbor Bridge and Sydney skyline during sunset. Vacation and travel in Australia.

Prasit Photo | Moment | Getty Images

Australian stocks rose 0.38% Wednesday as Wall Street rebounded overnight, while several Asia-Pacific markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Australia is slated to release its inflation data later in the day. Economists polled by Reuters expect the a 2.5% rise in inflation in the 12 months to the December quarter, compared with 2.8% in the previous year.

Japan benchmark Nikkei 225 was set to open higher, with the futures contract in Chicago at 39,410 while its counterpart in Osaka last traded at 39,350, against the index’s last close of 39,016.87.

Overnight in the U.S., key indexes recovered some ground from the sell-off sparked by the challenge posed by Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek to the U.S. AI ecosyetem.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.92% to 6,067.70, led by gains in technology shares. The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) rose more than 2%, following a 4.9% loss on Monday. The Nasdaq Composite surged 2.03% to 19,733.59, following a 3.1% decline a day ago.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 136.77 points, or 0.31%, to 44,850.35.

All eyes were on Nvidia which picked up momentum to close around nearly 9% higher. The chipmaker lost 17%, or almost $600 billion in market value, in the previous session to clock the biggest ever one-day drop in value for a U.S. company.

Other tech giants like Broadcom and Oracle ended Tuesday’s trading day up 2.6% and 3.6%, respectively, following steep losses Monday.

— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.


Leave a Comment