Asian benchmarks mostly rise after tech stocks lead rally on Wall Street

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher in early Friday trading, as regional market sentiment got a boost from the rally on Wall Street, mostly from big technology stocks.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.6% in morning trading to 64,622.33. South Korea's Kospi gained 0.9% to 6,635.67. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was little changed, slipping less than 0.1% to 9,011.80. Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 2.1% to 25,751.26, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.8% to 3,973.27.

Stocks on Wall Street closed higher Thursday as a recent run-up in bond yields eased further and big technology companies rallied. The S&P 500 rose 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2%, and the Nasdaq composite closed 1.4% higher.

Communication services stocks also accounted for a large share of the rally. Their huge valuations tend to give them more influence over the broader market’s direction.

Microsoft rose 2.7%, Apple gained 1% and Meta climbed 3%. Giant chipmaker Nvidia, whose high-end chips have emerged as the best building blocks for artificial intelligence, rose 1.8% after saying it would buy the AI platform Hugging Face for $13 billion .

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude edged up 65 cents to $91.95 a barrel. Brent crude rose 47 cents to $95.99 a barrel.

The six-month-long U.S. war with Iran , which has intensified lately, is the main cause behind the recent surge in energy prices.

Many nations around the world, including Japan which imports virtually all its oil, depend on access to the Strait of Hormuz to import oil from the Middle East.

Iran fired at Kuwait on Thursday in retaliation for U.S. bombardments earlier in the week.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates , dropped to 4.77% from 4.79% late Wednesday. It has been rising steadily throughout the year and was as low as 4.20% at the beginning of 2026.

On interest rates, some investors are taking the recent remarks by Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller as a sign that perhaps the Fed isn’t as likely to raise its short-term interest rates at its next policy meeting in two weeks as previously expected.

Waller said that, if new data next week shows inflation is cooling, he “would be inclined” to keep the Fed’s benchmark interest rate unchanged. Should the data show hotter inflation, he would consider a rate hike.

Market players are also closely watching what Japan's central bank might do on interest rates when its policy board meets later this month. Some analysts expect the Bank of Japan to raise its benchmark rate, and the question is by how much. Some reports say Japan is facing pressures to raise the interest rate so that the yen will move higher.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched down to 155.78 Japanese yen from 155.84 yen. The euro cost $1.1633, little changed from $1.1631.

AP Business Writer Alex Veiga contributed to this report.

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama