Asian stocks traded mixed on Wednesday, as strong gains in Japan and South Korea driven by AI enthusiasm offset losses in Australia, where inflation data came in hotter than expected.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped over 2% to a record high of 51,311.47, buoyed by a renewed rally in tech shares after Nvidia announced plans to build seven new AI supercomputers. South Korea’s KOSPI climbed 1.7% to an all-time high as SK Hynix reported record earnings from its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI servers.
China’s CSI 300 rose 0.5%, while Hong Kong markets were closed for a holiday. Singapore’s Straits Times Index slipped 0.3%, and India’s Nifty 50 added 0.2%.
In contrast, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.9% after third-quarter CPI rose 1.3%, surpassing expectations of 1.0%. The data fueled concerns that inflation remains stubborn, pushing back expectations for near-term rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Traders now expect the next easing move may not come until year-end.
Investor attention now turns to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting, where a 25-basis-point rate cut is widely anticipated, along with signals about the pace of future easing.