Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia stocks notch record highs

BENGALURU: Emerging Asia equities held firm near early-2021 highs on Tuesday, driven by records in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia, as investors looked past the US intervention in Venezuela to focus on macroeconomic data and the ongoing AI investment boom.

The MSCI index of emerging Asia equities jumped 1 percent to its highest since mid-February 2021, while its broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares including Japan touched a record high.

A broader index of global EM equities extended gains into an eighth consecutive session to hit a record high.

Investors broadly shrugged off the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and its potential implications on the oil market, leading equities to all-time highs largely driven by AI-related capital flows.

Moreover, a sharp contraction in US factory activity in December and dovish comments by Federal Reserve officials spurred risk-on sentiment on Wall Street overnight, which spilled into Asian markets.

Swaps indicate a nearly 84 percent probability of a hold from the Fed at its January meeting, but indicate around 39 percent chances of a 25-basis-point cut in March.

“The general market was likely to move its focus away from the Latin America issue and towards US data and the pace of Fed easing,” Maybank analysts wrote in a note.

Taiwan’s tech-heavy benchmark stock index rose as much as 1.4 percent to surge past 30,500 points for the first time. It was last trading at a record 30,508 points in afternoon trade. Taiwan’s dollar also gained around 0.2 percent.

However, shares in Seoul snapped a two-day winning streak to slip marginally, dragged lower by a 2.1 percent decline in chipmaker Samsung Electronics.

Investors await Samsung’s fourth-quarter earnings, with markets expecting the world’s top memory chip maker to flag a 160 percent jump in its operating profit for the period.

Elsewhere, Singapore’s FTSE Straits Times index jumped 1.3 percent, while Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite index advanced 0.5 percent, both scaling record peaks.

Stocks in Manila rose as much as 1.9 percent to their highest since September 19, 2025. The Philippine central bank said there was “ground for one more cut” in 2026 if growth fell below 5 percent, and that given the current data, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas would not be cutting rates.

Currencies in the region were mostly firmer against a steady US dollar, with the Malaysian ringgit rising 0.4 percent, while the Singapore dollar rose 0.1 percent to its highest since September 18, 2025.

Bucking the trend, the Indonesian rupiah was down 0.2 percent.