ASIA MARKET OPEN | Seoul Leads Asia Higher as KOSPI Jumps Over 1%, Hong Kong Adds 171 Points; Taiwan Reverses Early Gains

According to Yonhap, the Korea Herald and HKET, Asian equity benchmarks opened broadly higher on Thursday, tracking overnight Wall Street gains after U.S. President Donald Trump played down the prospect of a prolonged conflict with Iran and oil prices eased. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 opened little changed and held steady, trading at 64,393.12, up 0.10% or 67.48 points, as of 01:39 UTC. Chip-related names were mixed, with Tokyo Electron up 1.36% and Sony up 0.46%, while Advantest slipped 0.46%. Seoul's KOSPI opened 1.33% higher before paring gains, with the benchmark index opening at 6,650.33, up 87.61 points, according to Yonhap. The tech-heavy KOSDAQ opened at 814.31, up 10.33 points. Samsung Electronics rose 1.2% and SK hynix climbed 1.05%, while LG Energy Solution added 1.29%. The Korean won was quoted at 1,362.2 per dollar. Hong Kong stocks rebounded at the open, with the Hang Seng Index opening 171 points higher at 25,482 and the Hang Seng Tech Index up 0.7% at 4,549. Tencent rose more than 1% and Lenovo gained over 3%, while MINIMAX bucked the trend to fall nearly 3%. Taiwan's TAIEX opened up 160.76 points at 46,325.48, led by MediaTek, but soon reversed, trading at 46,125.85, down 0.08% or 38.87 points, as of 01:39 UTC. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite opened up 0.29%, the Shenzhen Component gained 0.73% and the ChiNext Index rose 0.9%, with gold, semiconductor and server shares leading advancers.