By Gregor Stuart Hunter
SINGAPORE, May 21 (Reuters) – Stocks rose on Thursday as some vessels resumed passage through the Strait of Hormuz, while forecast-beating results at Nvidia and a suspended workers’ strike at Samsung Electronics lifted shares of chipmakers.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 1.2%, snapping a four-day streak of losses as the KOSPI surged more than 4%.
Brent crude futures edged up 0.7% to $105.76 a barrel in Asia trade, retracing declines after three supertankers passed through the strait on Wednesday and Iran consolidated its control of the waterway.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 1.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite rallied 1.5% after three days of declines, as President Donald Trump said the United States was ready to proceed with further attacks on Iran if Tehran did not agree to a peace deal, but suggested Washington could wait a few days to “get the right answers.”
“Oil prices declined and other major markets rallied, as investors took comfort from headlines quoting Trump saying the U.S. was in the ‘final stages’ with Iran,” analysts from Westpac wrote in a research report.
Asian chipmakers’ shares rose after Nvidia’s better-than-expected revenue forecast on Wednesday as CEO Jensen Huang aimed to reassure investors that the world’s most valuable company can sustain blockbuster growth in demand for its flagship AI chips.
“The chip landscape remains Nvidia’s world with everybody else paying rent, as more sovereigns and enterprises wait in line for Nvidia’s chips,” said Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities in New York.
However, Nvidia’s shares fell 1.1% in extended trading, while S&P 500 e-mini futures slipped 0.5%.
“The market’s reaction was relatively muted by its own lofty standards,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG in Sydney. “The lack of any China sales in the outlook and guidance that was only modestly ahead of expectations left some investors wanting a bit more fireworks.”
In Seoul, Samsung Electronics shares surged more than 6% after the electronics giant’s union said it would suspend industrial action upon reaching a tentative pay deal with the company, averting a strike by nearly 48,000 workers that threatened South Korea’s economy and global chip supply.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 share index was up 1.9% after S&P Global’s flash manufacturing PMI expanded at a slower pace than a month earlier, slipping to 54.5 in May from 55.1 the previous month.
Separately, Japanese exports rose 14.8% year-on-year in April, finance ministry data showed, rising for an eighth straight month and confounding fears of stagflation in the global economy.
Australian shares were up 1.5% despite a mixed set of leading indicators. Flash PMI data showed activity in the country’s service industry slowed to 47.7 in May from 50.7 a month earlier, though a corresponding manufacturing gauge held at 50.2, just above the mark separating expansion from contraction.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yield rose 1.9 basis points to 4.588%, resuming its climb after snapping a three-day streak of declines on Wednesday. Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s April 28-29 meeting showed policymakers’ concerns about inflation intensified last month, with a growing number open to the possibility that they may need to raise interest rates.
Bitcoin was down 0.3% at $77,453.44, while ether was 0.3% lower at $2,127.53.
(Reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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