Newscasts - Asia Markets Briefing: Markets start to move on from Korea debacle

Foxconn Technology

05/12/2024 09:00

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Source: 'Reuters - Business videos'

Description: An ongoing Wall Street tech rally gave Asian stocks a lift on
Thursday, as investors started to shift their focus away from Tuesday's shock
declaration of martial law in South Korea.
Short Link: https://refini.tv/4fYTioO

Video Transcript:

Markets look to move on from this week's Korean crisis, buoyed by a Wall
Street rally. Welcome to Asia Markets Briefing. I'm Thomas Warner. This week's
martial law scare in South Korea was starting to look like old news on
Thursday, at least in the stock markets. The property sector weighed on the
Hang Seng, with investors happy to sit on their hands and wait for more
stimulus. Japan’s Nikkei racked up its fourth day of gains, lifted by US
inspired gains in tech. An ongoing Wall Street tech rally brought all three
major US indices to fresh record highs on Wednesday. Shanghai and the broader
regional index were steady. And in Korea, a slight loss for the KOSPI was
still well within the recent range. Korean lawmakers will vote this weekend on
whether to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over Tuesday's botched attempt to
impose martial law. The defense minister blamed for advising the move has
resigned ahead of the vote. For now, though the event appeared to have more
political significance than financial, especially given that investors have
long priced in their concerns about the country. Japanese Prime Minister
Ishiba spoke in favor of President Yoon’s work in building bridges with
Tokyo when he addressed Parliament on Thursday, expressing concern about what
instability on the Korean Peninsula could mean for Japanese security. Let's
return to the corporate world though now, and an update on Nippon Steel's
first up. Vice Chair Takahiro Mori told Reuters the company is committed to
its $15 billion takeover of US steel and wants to get the deal done before the
New Year. It's a sign of how important the deal is to Nippon Steel's expansion
plans. Mori was speaking after his eighth trip to the US since the takeover
plan was announced just a year ago. But it still faces stiff opposition from
both the Biden and incoming Trump administrations. And in China, a Huawei
executive has been talking to the media as well. The group's consumer CEO, He
Gang says that Huawei has been caught on the hop by demand for the Mate 70
smartphone, which he even described as, “excessive,” it's stepped-up
production. And iPhone assembler Foxconn is also enjoying a bit of a purple
patch. It's reported a revenue gain of 3.5% on the year in November.
That’s its second highest on record at almost $21 billion. And on the
economic side, the latest CPI print for the Philippines came in above forecast
at 2.5%, buoyed by typhoon induced hikes to food prices. The Philippine
Central Bank said in response that it plans to take a “measured
approach” to cutting rates. And finally, hope for a crypto friendly Trump
administration has helped Bitcoin finally surpass the $100,000 mark. One
analyst that we spoke to said that there could be more gains to come.

It's very interesting though that the event happened during Asia session. And
so it's it'll be very interesting to look at the US reacting to the news and
one could expect maybe prices to go even higher with the Americans buying more
and even more inflows into the ETF’s, although of course as markets move
it is never a straight line and there will be retracements along the way.

And that's it for your Asia Markets Briefing