SINGAPORE: Asian stock markets headed for a second straight week of gains on Friday and the dollar for its first weekly rise in more than a month as investors have welcomed an apparent softening of the White House stance on China, despite no signal of detente.
U.S. tech giant and Google parent Alphabet also beat profit expectations and reaffirmed AI spending targets, pushing its shares up nearly 5% in after-hours trade and pulling along peers and S&P 500 futures, which rose 0.5%.
