America News Agency

Japan’s Nikkei 225 crossed the 42,000 mark for the first time amid a broader rise in Asia-Pacific markets on Thursday, after U.S. Big Tech rallied overnight on optimism over Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The Nikkei gained 0.97 percent, powered by technology stocks, while the broad-based Topix rose 0.7 percent, also scaling a new peak with a year-on-year basis, core machinery orders in Japan climbed 10.8 percent. Machinery orders are a volatile, yet leading indicator of capital spending in Japan, and a fall could indicate a fragile economy, complicating the Bank of Japan’s plans to normalize monetary policy.

South Korea’s Kospi was 0.75 percent higher as the Bank of Korea held rates at 3.5 percent for the 12th time in a row, while the Kosdaq was 0.11 percent up. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.93 percent. Hong Kong Hang Seng index popped 1.41 percent, while the mainland Chinese CSI 300 index climbed 0.35 percent.

In the U.S., all three major indexes rose, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gaining 1.02 percent and 1.18 percent respectively. The gains also meant that the S&P broke above the 5,600 mark for the first time, marking its 37th record close in 2024. The Nasdaq saw its 27th record close this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.09 percent.

Chip stocks were among the biggest winners of the U.S. trading session. U.S.-listed shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company added 3.5 percent after revenue from April to June came in ahead of Wall Street estimates.

Peer chip firm Qualcomm ticked higher by 0.8 percent, and Broadcom rose about 0.7 percent. Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia climbed 2.7 percent. Gains were also fueled by rate cut hopes, with expectations from Dow Jones indicating that the June inflation rate would come in 3.1 percent year over year, lower than the 3.3 percent rise seen in May.

The core inflation rate, which strips out more volatile food and energy prices, is expected to rise 3.4 percent since June last year. In May, CPI was up 3.3 percent on an annual basis.