Overnight US stock gains boost Asia-Pacific; Japanese stocks rise nearly 2%, South Korean stocks surge over 3%, Indonesian stock market plunges 11%

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has endorsed the financial status of AI cloud computing provider CoreWeave, to some extent easing market concerns over AI infrastructure financing pressure. Overnight, US stock indices closed higher, and Asia-Pacific equity markets generally followed on Friday.

On Friday, the Nikkei 225 Index rose about 1.7%, the TOPIX Index gained 1.8%; KOSPI extended morning gains to as much as 3.4%; Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.89%.

US stock futures were weak, with Nasdaq 100 futures down about 0.5% while S&P 500 futures were little changed. Investors are waiting for Fed Chairman Waller’s speech later on Friday at an IMF event in Bangkok, seeking clues on the possibility of a rate hike in October.

In addition, Indonesia’s stock market plunged more than 11% after MSCI announced it was considering demoting and removing Indonesia from its global equity indices, triggering a circuit breaker.

Dollar Index was flat and spot gold edged down about 0.05% to around $4,168 per ounce. Brent crude oil slipped 0.1% to about $105.78 per barrel, and WTI crude lost 0.67% to about $97.32 per barrel.

Asia-Pacific Tech Stocks Rebound, Korea Leads Gains

Asia-Pacific stock markets mostly opened higher and maintained their upward momentum on Friday.

Wallstreet Insights noted that Jensen Huang told Bloomberg at an event in Stockholm that CoreWeave’s fundamentals are improving daily, borrowing costs are actually falling, and he does not believe the data center operator will need Nvidia to bail it out.

KOSPI’s morning gains once widened to 3.4%.

The tech sector was the main driver behind the rally. SK Hynix rose 2.22% and Samsung Electronics gained 2.86%.

According to Reuters, Korea’s Ministry of Finance stated it will intensify monitoring of market risk factors, claiming the equity market’s fundamentals remain solid, and will closely track how stock volatility impacts bonds, forex, and short-term funding markets.

Nikkei 225 Index rose about 1.7%, TOPIX Index was up 1.8%. SoftBank Group advanced 1.92%, chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron nearly 2%, Advantest climbed 1.89%, and memory chipmaker Kioxia surged as much as 6%.

In addition, Japanese companies in digital transformation and IT software sectors rallied collectively. Management consulting giant BAYCURRENT surged directly to the daily limit today, jumping 17.25% in one session, closing above JPY 10,000 for the first time ever and achieving a historic high since listing.

The direct catalyst came from the company’s semi-annual results released after the market closed yesterday: operating profit grew a remarkable 28.5% year-on-year, with the growth pace accelerating from Q1; simultaneously, the firm outlined an ambitious vision to reach JPY 500 billion in sales by fiscal 2031, far exceeding market expectations.

Japan’s leading software testing and quality assurance firm SHIFT Software also delivered a strong earnings report after the close yesterday. Its guidance for the new fiscal year was extremely bullish, spurring a rush of capital at the market open, sending the stock price soaring 16.52%.

The stellar results of these two top leaders sharply lifted market profit expectations for Japan’s entire software transformation and system integration sector. System integration giant Nomura Research Institute jumped 7.09% in one day, tech services leader Fujitsu was up 6.14%, and electronics and software solutions provider NEC also surged 4.87%.

The biggest risk in the Asia-Pacific region comes from Indonesia. MSCI said Indonesia is no longer suitable as an emerging market and may thus be removed from the global equity indices.

Impacted by this announcement, Indonesia’s benchmark stock index plunged as much as 11% on Friday, triggering a circuit breaker; trading was halted for 30 minutes, and the rupiah slipped. Bank Indonesia subsequently stated it would continue to intervene in both offshore and onshore forex markets to stabilize the currency.

Indonesia’s 10-year government bond yield rose by 10 basis points, reaching a two-month high.

The dollar index was little changed, after falling 0.3% on Thursday.

Wallstreet Insights noted that although the US PPI MoM for September hit a four-year high and retail sales were above expectations—data that should have supported the dollar—AI-linked assets were sold heavily, triggering risk aversion. Funds rushed into US Treasuries, pushing yields lower and dragging the dollar down instead.

Analysts pointed out that the dollar is tightly tied to AI capital expenditure; if the market fears AI investment has peaked, the dollar will be among the first to take a hit.

In energy, Brent crude edged down 0.1% to about $105.78 per barrel, WTI crude lost 0.67% to about $97.32 per barrel. Nonetheless, due to rising Middle East supply risks, oil prices still recorded weekly gains. The US government’s emergency reserve release partly offset the increases.

Among precious metals, spot gold edged down about 0.05% to around $4,168 per ounce.