MANILA (Reuters): Chip stocks in South Korea and Taiwan drove Asian emerging markets to a multi-month high on Monday, helped by a healthy appetite for AI-related equities, while the Philippine peso hit a record low as elevated oil prices threaten the country's trade balance.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra last week, a new AI model it calls its best yet, driving a surge in the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index in the U.S. on Friday.
"That carried directly into Seoul and Taipei this morning, led by SK Hynix up nearly 6% and Samsung up 4.3%, with both foreign and institutional investors as net buyers," said Inki Cho, a senior financial market strategist at online trading platform Exness.
South Korea's KOSPI ended 4.6% higher, logging its highest close since July 23. Taiwan's benchmark gauge closed 1.7% higher at its highest close since June 22.
Chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics rose 8.3% and 5.7% to their highest close since July 27 and August 21, respectively. Taiwan's TSMC closed 2.1% higher at its highest close since July 16.
The MSCI EM Asia equities index, dominated by the two countries' indexes, rose as much as 2.1% to its highest level since June 30. Meanwhile, the Philippine peso weakened to 62.763 per U.S. dollar as oil prices rose on account of the ongoing war in the Middle East.
"The peso is being hit by a double shock: rising oil prices are increasing the Philippines’ import bill and demand for dollars, while renewed Federal Reserve rate-hike expectations are supporting U.S. yields," said Glenn Yin, director of research at ACCM.
The U.S. jobs report from Friday provided only a mild lift to the greenback, currently flat, as worries about ever-growing U.S. debt and policy uncertainties weighed on the currency, driving investors to other safe-haven assets including gold. Upcoming U.S. inflation data could be a more decisive factor determining whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will hike or hold interest rates at its meeting next week.
Fed rate hikes typically pressure emerging-market assets by strengthening the dollar, raising borrowing costs and prompting capital outflows from riskier markets.
Elsewhere in emerging Asia, Thai stocks advanced as much as 1.5% to their highest level since August 21. Data showed that the country's headline inflation rose 2.53% in August from a year earlier.
Barclays analysts in a note said that the Bank of Thailand is expected to maintain the policy rate unchanged at 1% for the rest of 2026, even as a renewed surge in global energy prices pushed up energy inflation and core CPI inched up.
Equities in Malaysia edged 0.3% higher, while Singapore stocks slipped 0.6% to snap a three-day winning streak. Malaysia's ringgit slipped to a near three-week low of 4.048 per U.S. dollar, while the Indonesian rupiah inched lower to trade at 17,650 per dollar. Taiwan's dollar appreciated as much as 0.4% to 31.5 against the U.S. dollar, its strongest level since June 5.
That helped the MSCI gauge of emerging market currencies gain. -- Reuters
