Shares in Australia and Japan advanced. An index of US-listed Chinese stocks fell 1% Thursday, running against the grain of trading in New York but partly reflecting selling in Hong Kong stocks in their most recent session.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 both rose Thursday. Nvidia ended higher and even touched a fresh intraday record in a sign investors re-calibrated initial concerns over its revenue outlook. The company assured investors that its new product lineup will continue to fuel an artificial intelligence-driven growth run.
“The guidance seems to show lower growth, but this may be Nvidia being conservative,” said Alvin Nguyen, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. “Short term, there is no worry about AI demand. Nvidia is doing everything they should be doing.”
Bitcoin set a fresh high, climbing past $98,000 on bets President-elect Donald Trump’s support for crypto and a looser regulatory environment will usher in a boom for the industry. A Fox Business News report suggested Chris Giancarlo, a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was being weighed as the first “crypto czar” under the incoming administration.
Australian and New Zealand bonds were little changed Friday after Treasury yields rose across the curve Thursday. The policy-sensitive two-year yield climbed three basis points to end the session at the highest level since July. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee however, said he sees interest rates moving “a fair bit lower,” expressing confidence inflation is easing toward the central bank’s objective.Mixed US labor data added to the debate as jobless claims came in lower than expected while continuing claims, a gauge of the number of people receiving benefits, rose to a three-year high. Upward pressure on yields supported an index of the dollar. The greenback climbed against most major currencies on Friday, with the yen an exception. The Japanese currency extended its strengthening against the dollar early Friday. Inflation in Japan held above the central bank’s target as expected.
Elsewhere in Asia, investors will be monitoring the fallout from a US indictment against Gautam Adani over allegations of bribery. Shares of Adani Group units tumbled and the conglomerate scrapped a $600 million dollar bond sale. The company denied the allegations.
Singapore’s economic expansion fared better than initially expected in the third quarter, prompting the city-state to upgrade its growth forecast for this year as recovery gained momentum.
Geopolitical Storm
Geopolitical tensions continued to simmer as Russia said it had launched a new kind of ballistic missile into Ukraine, boosting oil and gold prices Thursday. West Texas Intermediate was steady after rising almost 2% in the prior session. Gold was little changed after climbing for a fourth day on Thursday.
“Geopolitics always has a potential of introducing volatility in the market and we have seen that with what is happening in Ukraine,” Themis Themistocleous, chief investment officer, EMEA at UBS Wealth Management told Bloomberg Television. “We have been advising clients to include oil into their portfolio, or derivatives of oil, to be able to hedge against potential volatility.”
Elsewhere, strategists at market research firm Fundstrat expect US stocks to climb into the Thanksgiving holiday week, followed by some weakening in December.
“The Nvidia earnings report leaves the likelihood of a Thanksgiving rally intact,” they wrote. “The AI trajectory has not changed all that much, but the market’s immediate reaction is less important than the fact that the uncertainty over Nvidia’s results is behind us.”
Meanwhile, some of the anxiety in Washington over Trump’s pick for the top post at the US Treasury may be easing. The race has narrowed down to three front-runners – hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, private equity executive Marc Rowan and former Federal Reserve board member Kevin Warsh, according to according to BMO’s Ian Lyngen.