The majority of Asian stocks took a break on Thursday as the technology shares reduced after recent gains. While the investors are assessing the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep the interest rates unchanged, and mixed mega-cap tech earnings.
Resultantly, Wall Street concluded with a subdued attitude, with the Nasdaq and the S&P500 posting marginal changes after earnings from some of the world’s largest technology companies.
US stock futures were slightly lower during Asian hours, indicating a softer open later in the day.
On the other hand, Meta Platforms’ shares climbed in post-market trading after delivering an optimistic revenue outlook, strengthening interest in AI-powered advertising tools. Tesla also outperformed the estimates and offered some support to growth stocks.
Contrarily, Microsoft shares decrease due to increasing costs associated with heavy AI investment, moderating the broader enthusiasm within the sector.
Asian technology stocks that had risen in recent weeks against expected powerful AI-related demand fell after recent gains.
South Korea’s KOSPI also dropped by 0.3% after climbing to fresh record highs earlier in the session.
SK Hynix and Heavyweight chipmaker Samsung Electronics reported strong earnings and outlooks on Thursday. However, these shares retreated afterwards as investors locked in gains amongst broader market weakness.
The Federal Reserve’s policy decision was the center of attention for all investors. The US Central Bank maintained its standard interest rate unchanged after a series of cuts last year.
Jerome Powell, the Chair of the Federal Reserve, said that policymakers required better confidence that inflation was moving sustainably towards 2% before facilitating policy further, while noticing that economic growth was robust.
Read: Microsoft Q2 Earnings Beat on Revenue and Profit as Cloud Tops $50B, Shares Slip
Market pricing from CME’s FedWatch tool indicated that traders assume the Fed will keep interest rates on hold in the near term, but would deliver two more cuts later in the year.
Returning to Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed 0.2% lower while the broader TOPIX was reduced by 0.3%. Similarly, HongKong’s Hang Seng index decreased by 0.2% after increasing by 2.5% in the preceding session.
In mainland China, both the Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 and the Shanghai Composite index were muted.
Australia’s S &P/ASX200 also ticked down by 0.6%, whereas Singapore’s Straits Times was closed at 0.1% down. Futures for India’s Nifty 50 were also lowered by 0.1%
