People celebrate the New Year at the Bank of China building in Central, Hong Kong, China, January 1, 2026.
Lam Ik | Reuters
Korean Kospi Asia-Pacific markets hit new highs on Friday as a mixed start to the new year’s trading.
The Kospi rose 2.27% to close at a record high of 4,309.63. Major Samsung Electronics rose about 7% after the company reportedly claimed that customers praised its high memory bandwidth (HBM chips).
The small-cap Kosdaq closed 2.17% higher at 945.57.
Some Asian markets, including Japan and mainland China, remained closed for holidays.
hong kong Hang Seng Index Education services stocks led the gains, rising 2.62% in the last hour of trading. Shanghai Meilian, which designed an artificial intelligence chip, soared more than 70% after debuting with a HK$5.58 billion ($717 million) IPO.
The IPO, priced at HK$19.60, was more than 2,300 times oversubscribed in the public offering and 25.95 times oversubscribed in the international public offering, even after the upsize option was exercised.
Elsewhere, Singapore’s economy grew 5.7% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, mainly driven by strong growth in manufacturing in the three months to December. The latest reading is faster than last quarter’s revised 4.3% growth.
On Wednesday, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced in his New Year’s address that the country recorded a better-than-expected economic growth of 4.8% for the full year of 2025.
singapore’s Straits Times Index It also hit an all-time high on Friday, last up 0.32%.
indian nifty 50 The index rose 0.61% and the Sensex index rose 0.56%. Stocks of casual restaurant operating company sapphire foods Shares fell as much as 6.4% after announcing plans to merge with rival franchisees Devyanibefore offsetting losses.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.15% to close at 8,727.8.
U.S. stock futures rose in the first half of Asian time, with S&P futures up 0.15% and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.12%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.16%.
In U.S. time on Wednesday, the S&P 500 was down 0.74%, the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.76% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.63%.
However, the S&P 500 only gained 16.39% in 2025.
The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 20.36% on the AI frenzy, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 12.97% in 2025, hampered somewhat by a lack of technology representation.
—CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Sarah Ming contributed to this report.
