Stock indexes for Shanghai and Shenzhen are displayed on an electronic board as people walk on a pedestrian bridge in the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai, China, on April 3, 2025.
Go Nakamura | Reuters
Japanese stocks led gains in Asian markets on Friday as investors welcomed a ceasefire between the United States and China following a meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The two countries reached a kind of trade deal in a high-stakes meeting in South Korea on Thursday, calming a dispute over rare earth elements that had threatened to push the world’s two largest economies into a full-blown trade war.
“Both sides seem to be maintaining leverage in future negotiations by keeping these measures as bargaining chips,” said Chaoping Chu, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management.
Japanese Nikkei Stock Average rose more than 2% to a new record of 52,411.34, while TOPIX also added 0.94% to 3,331.83, setting a new high.
Shares of Panasonic Holdings fell more than 8% on Thursday, citing weak earnings in its main energy unit, which supplies batteries to Tesla and other automakers, and the company cut its full-year operating profit forecast by 13.5%.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5% to close at a new high of 4,107.5, following Thursday’s record. The small-cap Kosdaq rose 1.07% to 900.42.
South Korean tech stocks rose after US chipmaker Nvidia announced it would work with the South Korean government to expand the country’s AI infrastructure using more than 250,000 Nvidia GPUs.
Internet services giant Naver is also participating in this effort through its subsidiary Naver Cloud, which will expand its AI capabilities with more than 60,000 Nvidia GPUs. Naver stock rose about 5%.
Hyundai rose 9.6% after Nvidia said it was opening a new AI factory powered by the latest Blackwell AI processors and deepening its partnership with automakers in self-driving cars, smart factories and robotics.
The companies plan to install 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs in South Korea and invest about $3 billion in AI infrastructure.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed flat at 8,881.9.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 1.43% lower at 25,906.65, while mainland China’s CSI300 index fell 1.47% to 4,640.67.
China’s manufacturing activity contracted more than expected in October, to its lowest level since May, an official survey showed on Friday, as trade tensions with the US government flared up during the month.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index stood at 49, lower than the 49.6 expected by economists polled by Reuters. A value above the indicator 50 indicates growth, a value below it suggests contraction.
The country’s manufacturing activity has been contracting since April, when US President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign squeezed Chinese factories and global demand.
Overnight in the U.S. market, all three major stock averages closed lower as investors absorbed profits from big tech companies. The S&P 500 Index fell 0.99% to close at 6,822.34, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.57% to close at 23,581.14. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 109.88 points, or 0.23%, to trade at 47,522.12.
—CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Sarah Min contributed to this report.
