"Asian equities pushed higher overnight, led by outsized gains in technology. South Korea's SK Hynix surged more than 7% to a 25-year high after unveiling its latest HBM4 chip, which investors believe could be transformative for artificial intelligence applications. Notably, this eases a bottleneck that should help the likes of Nvidia which has been constrained by bandwidth and will enjoy efficiency benefits as a result."
"In Hong Kong, Alibaba rallied over 5% and Baidu soared more than 8% after both revealed they are deploying proprietary AI chips to train large models - a strategic step toward reducing reliance on Nvidia and strengthening China's domestic tech ecosystem. With the Chinese companies requiring specific government approval for any purchases of the Nvidia H20 chip, investors are hopeful that we will see a similar AI boom for the relatively cheap Chinese tech names."
"US equities closed at all-time highs on Thursday, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all setting new records. The rally was powered by continued strength in technology, with Tesla and Micron building on Oracle's earlier surge to extend the week's bullish momentum. On the macro front, yesterday's CPI release saw a concerning 0.4% rise in August, although this was overshadowed by a jump in jobless claims which rose to their highest level in nearly four years."
FTSE 100 opened higher despite a flat UK GDP print for July. GDP growth was 0.0% in July, down from June's 0.4%, with a three-month rolling average of 0.2%. Services rose 0.1% and construction rose 0.2%, while manufacturing fell 1.3%. Sterling weakness and strength in energy and financial stocks helped the index outperform European peers. Asian technology shares led gains after SK Hynix unveiled an HBM4 chip and Chinese firms revealed proprietary AI chips. US indexes closed at record highs amid a 0.4% CPI rise and a jump in jobless claims.
Read at London Business News | Londonlovesbusiness.com
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