BENGALURU: Most emerging Asian equity markets rose on Thursday as artificial intelligence-led optimism boosted sentiment, while currencies edged down against a firm dollar ahead of the much-anticipated US-China summit.
MSCI’s EM Asia equities gauge rose 0.8 percent, helped by a 1.8 percent gain in South Korea’s KOSPI and a 0.9 percent jump in Taiwan stocks. The two tech-heavy markets account for about 40 percent of the MSCI index.
A sustained boom in artificial intelligence has lifted regional chipmakers, with Samsung Electronics surging more than 3 percent to a record high, while rival SK Hynix neared the USD1 trillion market capitalisation mark.
“Strong performance among Asian AI/Semiconductors stocks has been providing support for the Asian equity markets,” said Poon Panichpibool, a market strategist at Krung Thai Bank, while warning that downside risks from stretched valuations remain.
The ongoing high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping has yielded few surprises so far, with Xi saying that trade talks were making progress at the start of a two-day meeting.
“I think the market players remain hopeful about the Trump-Xi summit which could de-escalate the Middle East conflict and further facilitate the US-Iran peace talk,” said Panichpibool, pointing to the broadly neutral to mildly bullish sentiment across Asian markets.
While investors initially saw scope for economic gains, analysts doubt Beijing will pressure Tehran too hard or scale back strategic support for Iran, seen as a counterweight to the United States, leaving the geopolitical outlook uncertain.
The summit also touched on Taiwan, with Xi warning disagreements could trigger regional conflict.
China’s yuan, both onshore and offshore, rose to three-year highs against the dollar, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 1.5 percent.
Philippine stocks climbed 1.2 percent, a day after gunshots erupted at the Senate.
Jollibee Foods was among the top performers with a 3.7 percent rise, after losing nearly 17 percent over the last two sessions on declining profits, an uncertain outlook and its removal from MSCI’s Philippine global standard index.
Meanwhile, Bangkok’s SET Index rose 1.1 percent for a second consecutive session, after the country’s finance minister indicated that economic growth could exceed 3 percent within the next one to two years.
In currencies, the South Korean won heldat 1,488.32 a dollar, while the Malaysian ringgit and Taiwan dollar were little changed.
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