{"id":383353,"date":"2026-01-02T10:27:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T10:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/383353\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T10:27:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T10:27:05","slug":"benchmarks-in-britain-and-south-korea-hit-records-as-world-shares-get-an-upbeat-start-to-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/383353\/","title":{"rendered":"Benchmarks in Britain and South Korea hit records as world shares get an upbeat start to 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BANGKOK (AP) \u2014 World markets began 2026 with gains, with benchmarks in Britain and South Korea hitting records as optimism over the future of artificial intelligence<\/a> carried over into the new year.<\/p>\n

In early European trading, the FTSE 100 in London jumped 1% to an intraday record of 10,033.94. It was the first time the FTSE had surpassed 10,000, supported by heavy buying of precious metals miners such as Fresnillo, which gained 5.7%, and Anglo American, which was up 1.5%.<\/p>\n

Miners have rallied due to recent gains in the prices of gold, silver and copper.<\/p>\n

Germany’s DAX added 0.5% to 24,619.41, while the CAC 40 in Paris surged 0.8% to 8,213.59.<\/p>\n

The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.6% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%.<\/p>\n

Expectations that AI will spur demand for computer chips and other items needed to build out data centers and the other infrastructure it requires boosted buying of tech-related shares.<\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s Kospi picked up 2.3% to 4,309.63 as the market\u2019s biggest heavyweight, Samsung Electronics, shot up 7.2%. SK Hynix, which makes computer chips used for AI and has partnered with Nvidia<\/a>, gained 4%.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.8% to 26,338.47 on a strong rally in tech shares.<\/p>\n

E-commerce giant Alibaba climbed 4.3% and Baidu, maker of the Ernie chatbot, jumped 9.4% after it said it plans to spin off its artificial intelligence computer chip unit Kunlunxin,<\/a> which would list shares in Hong Kong early 2027. The plan is subject to regulatory approvals.<\/p>\n

Markets were closed in Tokyo, Shanghai, Thailand and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The S&P\/ASX 200 in Australia edged 0.2% higher, to 8,727.30. Taiwan’s Taiex was up 1.3% and the Sensex in India added 0.6%.<\/p>\n

Recent manufacturing data for much of the region has been relatively weak, though trade has remained resilient.<\/p>\n

\u201cExports from most countries have surged in recent months, and we think the near-term outlook for Asia\u2019s export-oriented manufacturing sectors remains favorable,\u201d Shivaan Tandon of Capital Economics said in a report.<\/p>\n

U.S. stocks finished 2025 with a fourth day of losses, despite strong gains for the year. The S&P 500 gave up 0.7% and the Dow fell 0.6%. The Nasdaq composite closed 0.8% lower.<\/p>\n

The S&P 500 set 39 record highs in 2025 and closed 16.4% higher for the year<\/a>. The Nasdaq gained 20.4% and the Dow finished 13% higher.<\/p>\n

Wall Street\u2019s 2025 gains came as investors embraced the optimism surrounding artificial intelligence and its potential for boosting profits across almost all sectors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the market had no shortage of turbulence along the way. President Donald Trump eventually put his on-again, off-again tariffs on imported goods worldwide on pause while negotiating trade deals, helping to calm frayed nerves.<\/p>\n

Strong corporate profits and three cuts to interest rates<\/a> by the Federal Reserve also helped drive markets higher.<\/p>\n

Wall Street is betting that the Fed will hold interest rates steady at its next meeting in January.<\/p>\n

In other dealings early Friday, silver gained 4.8% after giving back 9.4% on Wednesday. It gained more than 140% in 2025.<\/p>\n

Gold picked up 1.4%. It closed out the year with a 63.7% gain.<\/p>\n

U.S. benchmark crude handed back early gains, falling 12 cents to $57.30 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 13 cents to $60.72 per barrel.<\/p>\n

The U.S. dollar rose to 156.85 Japanese yen from 156.75 yen. The euro fell to $1.1733 from $1.1746.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BANGKOK (AP) \u2014 World markets began 2026 with gains, with benchmarks in Britain and South Korea hitting records…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[181,28,7510,101,1866],"class_list":["post-383353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-business","tag-computer-chips","tag-economy","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}