India’s benchmark indices hit record highs on Thursday, while Asia-Pacific markets followed Wall Street’s gains on hopes of a Fed rate cut and a recovery in the technology sector.
The Nifty 50 touched 26,284.2, while the BSE Sensex touched 86,026.18. Both indices last reached record highs in September 2024.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.42%, led by technology stocks, while the Topix index added 0.64%. Among the biggest players were Advantest, which jumped as much as 5%, technology conglomerate SoftBank, which rose more than 5%, and Tokyo Electron, which rose 2.09%.
South Korea’s Kospi advanced 1.05%, while the small-cap Kosdaq gained 0.39%. Korea’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2.5% – in line with expectations – for the fourth consecutive monetary policy meeting, amid a weakened local currency and an overheated real estate market, SEEbiz reports. The Korean won has weakened against the dollar in recent months to its lowest level since April.
Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 rose 0.42%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.12% at the open, while the mainland’s CSI 300 was unchanged.
China’s industrial profits fell 5.5% in October from a year earlier, government data showed on Thursday. Profits in the first 10 months of the year rose 1.9% year-on-year, compared with a 3.2% rise in the January-September period.
