Asian stocks rise following chip rally, oil slips

Published Fri, Jul 10, 2026 · 09:39 AM

ASIAN stocks gained on Friday (Jul 10) as investors piled back into semiconductor stocks on renewed optimism over artificial intelligence-driven demand and oil fell.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.5 per cent, led by a 2.6 per cent rally in South Korea’s Kospi, though the regional benchmark remained on track for a weekly loss.

Among major market moves, the S&P 500 futures fell 0.1 per cent as of 9.44 am Tokyo time.

Hang Seng futures rose 0.3 per cent, Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) rose 1.5 per cent, Japan’s Topix rose 0.8 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was little changed.

SK Hynix swung between gains and losses in Seoul trading after raising US$26.5 billion in its American depositary share offering.

Futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index slipped 0.4 per cent, signalling a more cautious tone.

Brent crude dropped 0.3 per cent to about US$76 a barrel, extending Thursday’s decline as traders judged the US-Iran conflict as being unlikely to escalate into a broader disruption to energy supplies.

That helped Treasuries hold gains from Thursday, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year at 4.55 per cent. Government bonds of similar tenor in Japan and Australia edged higher.

Optimism towards technology shares resurfaced as investors focused on signs that the AI investment boom remains intact after a sharp bout of selling in chip stocks earlier this week.

Amid ongoing debate about inflation, interest rates and geopolitics, the market’s direction over the next month may come down to earnings, according to Anthony Saglimbene, a strategist at Ameriprise.

“Companies will need to do more than just beat estimates,” he said.

“They will need to show that margins are holding at high levels, that guidance remains firm and probably even better than analysts currently project, and that tech-led profit growth still has enough breadth to support the market’s valuation.”

Spending by chip companies is at the centre of that debate. In the latest capital expenditure announcement, Micron Technology said it plans to increase spending on new plants in the US to US$250 billion to help meet demand fuelled by the AI boom.

SK Hynix’s ADR sale is expected to help fund growing spending plans amid soaring demand for equipment used in AI computing.

The company and Samsung Electronics are poised to ramp up investment in South Korea as part of a government-led initiative worth US$880 billion.

The ADRs are set to begin trading Friday on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol SKHYV, which will change to SKHY when they begin regular trading Jul 13.

AI is likely to remain a key driver of markets during the second half of 2026, but the narrative is evolving, and this transition may create a more selective environment, according to Jeff Buchbinder at LPL Financial.

Investors should focus less on who is spending the most and more on who is generating measurable returns from those investments, he said.

“Thursday’s US stock rally bucked the rotation out of tech seen in recent days. But it needs confirmation not just from the highly-cyclical financials reporting next week to stick, but from earnings growth all around, and some help from inflation,” said Edward Harrison, Bloomberg macro strategist.

Meanwhile, with the US and Iran exchanging airstrikes, the market treated the attacks as another round of managed escalation based on the premise that the economy can absorb the shock, said Elias Haddad at Brown Brothers Harriman. BLOOMBERG