BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Thursday after China rolled out more moves to try to boost its lagging stock markets by raising confidence that prices will rise.
Officials in Beijing said pension funds and mutual funds would be required to increase purchases of shares, to guarantee that market value rises. Listed companies will also be encouraged to do more stock buybacks and raise dividends to improve shareholder returns, the head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Wu Qing told reporters.
Share prices in Shanghai bounced higher and were up 1% at 3,246.51 by midday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up less than 0.1%, to 19,790.14.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index gained 0.6% to 39,891.10, helped by gains in technology shares, including those of SoftBank Group Corp. It is investing heavily in Stargate, a joint venture the White House has announced will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of artificial intelligence.
The partnership formed by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank is due to invest up to $500 billion. SoftBank’s shares rose 3.7% on Thursday in Tokyo trading after jumping 11% the day before.
Elsewhere in Asia, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia fell 0.6% to 8,383.50, while the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.8% to 2,526.98.
Taiwan’s Taiex jumped 1% and India’s Sensex shed 0.2%.
On Wednesday, Netflix, Oracle and other big technology stocks lifted Wall Street Wednesday as their profits pile higher and excitement builds around the moneymaking prospects of AI
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 6,086.37, close to its all-time closing high set early last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% to 44,156.73, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.3% to 20,009.34.
The gains came even though most U.S. stocks fell under the weight of higher Treasury yields.
The smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index lost 0.6%, for example, and roughly two out of every three stocks in the S&P 500 sank. But gains for big, influential stocks were more than enough to make up for it.
Netflix jumped 9.7% after it said live events like football games and a Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight helped it add nearly 19 million subscribers during the latest quarter.
The streaming giant joined a lengthening list of companies that have topped analysts’ profit expectations for the end of 2024. Such results support their stock prices and counteract the downward push they’ve felt from rising Treasury yields, which can peel investors away from stocks.
The rise in yields, caused in part by worries about stubborn inflation and the U.S. government’s swelling debt, had knocked down stocks and halted the record-breaking run that had carried them through 2024, at least briefly.
Travelers climbed 3.2% after also topping analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. The insurer said gains for its investments and growth in net written premiums helped it overcome losses created by Hurricane Milton, which plowed into Florida’s Gulf coast in October, and other catastrophes.
Some of the market’s most forceful pushes upward came from AI-related companies. Oracle added 6.8% and Nvidia, the company whose chips are powering much of the move into AI, rose 4.4%.
In the cryptocurrency market, where prices have surged on hopes President Donald Trump will make Washington friendlier to the industry, bitcoin was sitting just above $102,000, according to CoinDesk. It had set a record above $109,000 on Monday.
Some sourness is lingering after Trump and his wife launched meme coins, which critics said looked like an unseemly cash grab.
In other dealings early Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 21 cents to $75.23 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 27 cents to $76.40 per barrel.
The dollar rose to 156.52 Japanese yen from 156.43 yen. The euro was nearly unchanged at $1.0410.
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AP Business writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.
