Asian shares firmed into the Tokyo lunch break on October 27, with Japan's Nikkei up nearly 2% and South Korea's Kospi up 4%, led by chip stocks after a Nasdaq-led rally on Wall Street, while the Australian and New Zealand dollars gained.
Asian stocks firmed into the Tokyo lunch break on October 27, led by Japanese and South Korean shares after a Nasdaq-led rally on Wall Street, with the Australian and New Zealand dollars also gaining.
Japan's Nikkei 225 rose nearly 2% and South Korea's Kospi rose 4%, with SK Hynix surging 7% as chip stocks led the advance. Gold held steady and oil prices edged slightly lower, while energy remained a live inflation risk for central banks given continuing tension around Iran. In New Zealand, a majority of the NZIER Monetary Policy Shadow Board recommended a 25 basis point rise at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's coming review.
The rally followed renewed enthusiasm for artificial intelligence after Anthropic's public filing for a Nasdaq listing, ahead of big technology earnings and the Federal Reserve's rate decision. The filing itself was reported last week; the market move on October 27 is the fresh development, as Asian investors priced the same AI demand that lifted South Korea's exports and chip shares.
The session's direction is reported consistently in two market summaries: InvestingLive records the firming into the Tokyo lunch break, the gains in the Australian and New Zealand dollars, steady gold and slightly lower oil, and TradingKey records the same Nikkei and Kospi moves and the 7% rise in SK Hynix. No closing levels are given here, because the reports cover the session in progress rather than the close.
Attention now turns to the Federal Reserve, whose two-day meeting concludes on Wednesday, with several forecasters expecting it to skip a rise this time before moving again in December, and to the Bank of Japan's decision on Friday. Those two decisions will test whether the October 27 rebound holds or fades.