ASIA MARKET CLOSE | Chip Rebound Lifts Seoul and Tokyo; Hong Kong Edges Up, Taiwan Snaps Losing Streak

According to Yonhap, RTHK and UDN Money, Asian equities mostly firmed on Wednesday as bargain hunting in semiconductor shares lifted several markets ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's rate decision. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 438.90 points, or 0.69%, to close at 63,923.00, rebounding for the first time in four sessions and finishing at the day's high. Buying returned to high-priced technology shares in the afternoon, with Advantest, Tokyo Electron, Fast Retailing and Recruit Holdings advancing, while SoftBank Group, Kioxia Holdings, Konami Group and Otsuka Holdings fell. Seoul's KOSPI snapped a four-day losing streak, closing up 90.71 points, or 1.37%, at 6,717.97, as investors picked up major chip names. Samsung Electronics rose 2.01% to 253,500 won and SK hynix gained 4.08% to 1,759,000 won, while Hyundai Motor slipped 1.36%. Daishin Securities analyst Lee Kyoung-min said investors judged the recent KOSPI decline as excessive and that the memory-chip uptrend remained intact. Hong Kong stocks edged higher, with the Hang Seng Index closing up 46.54 points, or 0.19%, at 24,713.78 after erasing an early loss of more than 90 points; main board turnover was near HK$181.1 billion. The Hang Seng Tech Index added about 0.8% to 4,325. Lenovo climbed more than 8% and Zhipu rose nearly 6%, ending an 11-day slide, while SMIC and Hua Hong gained about 5% to 6%. CATL fell nearly 3%, the worst-performing blue chip. Zijin Mining and Laopu Gold rose more than 3% and 5% respectively, and Trip.com closed up nearly 4% despite swinging to a second-quarter loss on a mainland antitrust fine. Taiwan's TAIEX ended a four-day slump, rising 337.41 points, or 0.74%, to 45,848.90, briefly reclaiming 46,000 intraday, though the three major institutional investors were net sellers of NT$21.381 billion. TSMC, trading ex-dividend, touched an intraday high of NT$2,395 to fill its dividend gap before closing flat at NT$2,380. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite rose 27.32 points, or 0.71%, to 3,891.60, snapping a four-day decline, while the Shenzhen Component gained about 1.4% and the ChiNext Index added close to 2%.