TOKYO- Asian stocks jumped on Tuesday led by an outperforming tech sector following record highs on Wall Street overnight, while the dollar recovered lost ground against major rivals as traders weighed the outlook for US interest rates.
Investors were also monitoring the political turmoil in France as the government there teetered on the brink of collapse, leaving the euro languishing close to a one-week low.
The Chinese yuan faced its own challenges from the growing threat of more US tariffs on China, pushing it down to a 13-month trough.
Japan’s tech-heavy Nikkei rallied 2.2 percent in afternoon trade, and South Korea’s KOSPI advanced 1.8 percent. Taiwanese shares gained 1.4 percent.
Australia’s stocks benchmark rose 0.6 percent and reached a fresh all-time high. Singapore’s Straits Times index rose more than 1 percent to a 17-year peak.
However, Chinese stocks were heavy, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng managing only a 0.1 percent rise and mainland blue chips falling 0.4 percent.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares added 1 percent.
Both S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures pointed slightly higher after the cash indexes renewed their record peaks on Monday, helped by strong gains for most of the so-called Magnificent 7 high-tech stocks, including a nearly 19 percent surge for Facebook parent Meta Platforms and a 12 percent jump for Tesla
“Equity hedges have been unwound, which speaks to a market confident of a grind higher into year-end,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, referring to the bull run for US equities, and particularly the “MAG7”.
“Microsoft and Meta would be my picks that lead us higher from here.”
Microsoft advanced 7.5 percent overnight. The other “MAG7” stocks are Google parent Alphabet Amazon Apple and Nvidia
Pan-European STOXX 50 futures shook off France’s political woes to advance 0.4 percent. In currencies, the US dollar added 0.4 percent to 150.10 yen trying to put some distance from Monday’s low of 149.09, the weakest level since Oct. 21.
