The Exchange Centre, which houses the\u00a0Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. The S&P\/ASX 200 index extended gains to 0.3% after the central bank cut the key cash rate by 25 basis points, a move widely expected by economists and markets. Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Asia-Pacific markets mostly closed higher Thursday following a tech rally overnight on Wall Street that lifted the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, even as growing fears around the economy weighed on equities.<\/p>\n
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225<\/a> closed 1.53% higher at 42,580.27, as domestic tech stocks gained, led by SoftBank Group, which advanced over 6%. Shares of Fujikura<\/a>, a circuitry and optical cable maker, and Nvidia supplier Advantest<\/a> rose 6.04% and 4.63%, respectively.<\/p>\n Earlier in the session, shares of Kyoto-based Nidec Corp plunged as much as 22.44%<\/a>, after the company announced a probe into allegations of improper accounting in its group.<\/p>\n The broader Topix index increased 1.03% to close at 3,080.17.<\/p>\n Over in Australia, the S&P\/ASX 200 benchmark climbed 1% to 8,826.5. The country’s household spending in July rose 0.5% month on month, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics<\/a> on Thursday. This compares to a gain of 0.3% in June. On a yearly basis, household spending growth rose 5.1% in July, the fastest pace since November 2023.<\/p>\n The growth was boosted by demand for the health, transport, miscellaneous goods and services sectors.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi index closed 0.52% higher at 3,200.83, and the small-cap Kosdaq added 1.08% to 805.42.<\/p>\n Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index<\/a> pared earlier gains to end the trading session 1.12% lower, closing at 25,058.51, while the mainland’s CSI 300<\/a> retreated 2.12% in volatile trading at 4,365.21.<\/p>\n India’s benchmark Nifty 50<\/a> rose 0.27%, and the Sensex index was 0.39% higher as of 2:01 p.m. India Standard Time (4:31 a.m. EST).<\/p>\n Global bond markets will continue to be in focus with long-dated borrowing costs around the world under pressure. The U.S.\u00a030-year Treasury<\/a>\u00a0yield nudged above 5% on Wednesday morning for the first time since July\u00a0after a court ruled that most<\/a>\u00a0of the Trump administration’s tariffs are illegal, raising questions over the future of tariff revenues<\/a>.<\/p>\n Japan’s\u00a030-year bond yield<\/a>\u00a0was at a\u00a0record high on Wednesday<\/a>, with a 100 basis point rise this year driven by high inflation, low real rates and political uncertainty.<\/p>\n Overnight stateside, the three major averages closed mixed. The S&P 500 rose Wednesday, boosted by tech shares after a federal court decision in an\u00a0Alphabet<\/a>\u00a0antitrust case fueled optimism that the tech giants would be able to weather regulatory threats.<\/p>\n The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.03% to end the day at 21,497.73, while the\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0climbed 0.51% to finish at 6,448.26. The\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0lagged, falling 24.58 points, or 0.05%, to settle at 45,271.23.<\/p>\n \u2014 CNBC’s Jenni Reid, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Exchange Centre, which houses the\u00a0Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[10383,85,2339,138,553,6056,10380,10381,1222,10382,1759,220,111,139,3746,69,9596,1430],"class_list":["post-7963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-markets","tag-advantest-corp","tag-australia","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-chicago","tag-chinaamc-csi-300-esg-index-etf","tag-cnx-nifty-index","tag-economic-events","tag-fujikura-ltd","tag-japan","tag-markets","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nikkei-225-index","tag-nz","tag-osaka","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}