BANGKOK (AP) – Stocks were mostly higher in Asia on Thursday as Wall Street’s record rally was triggered.
Stocks fell in Chinese markets but rose in the rest of the region. US futures were almost unchanged and oil prices fell.
On Wednesday, US stocks continued to rise in a shortened post-holiday session poor reports for the economy kept the door open for a possible reduction in interest rates.
US markets will be closed on Thursday for the Independence Day holiday.
Investors around the world are eager to see the Federal Reserve cut rates, which it has held at two-decade highs to slow growth and tame inflation.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 gained 0.6% to 40,815.95, as buying in automakers and other export-oriented stocks kept the benchmark near 35-year highs.
Toyota Motor Corp. rose 1.3% and computer test equipment maker Advantest Corp. gained 2.4%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng recovered from early losses, rising 0.1% to 17,988.25, and the Shanghai Composite index fell 0.4% to 2,969.45.
Taiwan’s Taiex jumped 1.2% as chipmaker and market heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. gained 2.7%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1% to 7,815.80, while the Kospi in Seoul advanced 0.7% to 2,813.54.
Bangkok’s SET rose 1%.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.5% to set an all-time high for the second day in a row and the 33rd time this year. It closed at 5,537.02.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% to 39,308.00, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.9% to 18,188.30.
Tesla again helped lift the market and rose 6.5% the following day reporting a slight decline in sales for the spring than analysts had feared. It was one of the strongest forces pushing up the S&P 500, along with Nvidia. The darling of Wall Street rush into artificial intelligence technology rose 4.6% to bring the chip company’s year-to-date profit to 159%.
Action was strongest in the bond market, where Treasury yields fell after a flurry of weaker-than-expected reports on both the labor market and US services companies. Data can save Federal Reserve on track to deliver interest rate cuts later this year, as Wall Street wants.
A report said activity for businesses in the real estate sector, retail trade and other service industries in the US contracted in June for only the third time in 49 months, weaker than economists had forecast. Perhaps most importantly for Wall Street, the report from the Institute of Supply Management also said prices were rising at a slower pace.
This followed reports from earlier in the morning that indicated a slowdown in the labor market.
The hope on Wall Street is that the economy will soften just enough to keep a lid on it upward pressure on inflationbut not enough to put workers out of work and cause a recession.
A much-anticipated report will arrive on Friday, when the US government will provide its comprehensive update on how many workers employers added to their payrolls during June.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.35% from 4.44% late Tuesday, a notable move for the bond market, and most of the slide came after the report on US services businesses. It has generally fallen since April on hopes that inflation is slowing enough for the Federal Reserve to cut its key interest rate from the highest level in more than two decades.
In other deals, U.S. benchmark crude fell 56 cents to $83.32 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, lost 51 cents to $86.83 a barrel.
The US dollar fell to 161.50 Japanese yen, reflecting expectations that the US interest rate cut could narrow the rate gap with Japan, where the benchmark lending rate is close to zero.
The euro was unchanged at $1.0787.
___
AP business writer Stan Choe contributed.
