Taiwan stocks climbed and South Korean shares ended above the key 4,000 level on Thursday, after Nvidia's strong earnings tempered fears of an AI bubble.
Sentiment across Asian equities improved after AI-darling Nvidia overnight forecast quarterly revenue well above Wall Street expectations, with chief executive officer Jensen Huang pointing to strong demand from major cloud providers and downplaying bubble concerns.
Nvidia's sunny growth outlook caps a week that saw investors question the sustainability of the recent rally in AI, dragging tech-heavy South Korea and Taiwan markets more than 3% and 2% lower over the past two sessions.
South Korea's KOSPI, one of the region’s top performers this year, jumped as much as 3.3% earlier in the session before closing 1.9% higher.
The benchmark is now up 67% in 2025. Among index heavyweights, chipmaker Samsung Electronics gained 4.3%, while peer SK Hynix advanced 1.6%.
Taiwan stocks also rose 3.2%, snapping a two-session losing streak, with shares of TSMC, the world’s largest maker of advanced chips, climbing 4.3%.
Nvidia earnings also lifted the MSCI index of emerging Asia equities and a broader gauge of Asian shares outside Japan by nearly 1%, while the MSCI ASEAN index advanced 0.4%.
Other regional markets also traded in the green, with shares in Malaysia and Singapore up 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively, while Philippine markets advanced over 2%.
Thailand stocks gained 1.5%, helped by a 5.6% rise in shares of Airports of Thailand.
Indonesia's stock benchmark jumped 1% to a record high of 8,491.428 points after the country posted its first current account surplus in 10 quarters for the July-September period.
The gains come after the central bank left interest rates unchanged for a second consecutive policy review in the previous session.
Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo said the decision aligned with the central bank’s short-term priority of supporting the rupiah, which earlier this week hovered near a record low. The currency was down 0.3% on the day.
"We see some rupiah resilience but slight weakness towards 16,900 by end-2025. Authorities are aiming for currency stability and may delay rate cuts till next year," said Jeff Ng, head of Asia macro strategy at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.
Other currencies in the region were subdued against a firm dollar index with the Malaysian ringgit losing 0.3%, while the Philippine peso shed 0.1%. The Singapore dollar and the Thai baht were largely unchanged.
HIGHLIGHTS:
** China leaves benchmark lending rates unchanged for the sixth straight month
** Japan's stimulus to be worth $135 billion, largest since pandemic, draft shows - Reuters
