Market Insider – Asian markets finished the week on a generally positive note, primarily fueled by an AI-driven surge in Japanese stocks. Shares of conglomerate Hitachi ($HIT) were the star performer, closing over 10% higher Friday after the company announced a massive partnership with OpenAI late Thursday to develop AI infrastructure and global data centers.
Japan Leads the Way on Tech Excitement
The news from Hitachi helped push Japanese indexes sharply higher. The Nikkei 225 climbed 1.85% to settle at $45,769.50. The Topix finished up 1.35% at $3,129.17.
While services activity showed resilience—the S&P Global Japan services PMI rose to 53.3 in September—the manufacturing sector remains sluggish. This mixed data prompted S&P Global’s Annabel Fiddes to comment that the private sector “expanded at the slowest rate since May.”
Separately, Japan’s unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 2.6% in August, up from 2.3% the prior month and above the 2.4% forecast by Reuters economists.
Broader Asia and US Futures
Elsewhere in Asia, markets were mixed:
- Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 gained 0.46% to close at 8,987.4.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was a laggard, retreating 0.54%, with the Hang Seng Tech Index falling 0.90%.
- India’s Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex were trading flat in afternoon local time.
- Chinese and South Korean markets were closed for holidays.
Meanwhile, U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asian hours, digesting a strong overnight session on Wall Street.
Wall Street Shrugs Off Shutdown as Chipmakers Rally
U.S. stocks closed at record highs overnight, with investors largely ignoring the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, which is historically not a major market mover. The tech sector provided the main propulsion:
- The Nasdaq Composite rose about 0.4%.
- Nvidia ($NVDA) surged 0.9%, hitting an all-time high and powering other chipmakers like Intel and AMD, which both climbed more than 3%.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 0.2%, while the S&P 500 inched up 0.06%.
The government shutdown has forced the Labor Department to postpone the critical September nonfarm payrolls report. While this removes a potentially market-moving data point that the Federal Reserve would typically consider for its October interest rate decision, it also relieves some pressure on equity markets by creating a temporary data vacuum. Investors are now focused on assessing the duration of the shutdown and its potential economic impact.
