ASIA MIDDAY MOVES | Taiwan Stocks Jump 5.8% as Chipmakers Rebound, Nikkei Gains 3.2%

According to Kabutan, Yonhap and HKET, Japanese stocks rebounded sharply on Monday as AI and semiconductor shares sold off last week were bought back. The Nikkei 225 stood at 59,262.79 as of 04:33 UTC, up 1,828.02 points or 3.18%. Advancers made up 96% of the Prime Market in the morning session. Chip-equipment makers led, with Tokyo Electron up 4.72% and Advantest up 3.89%, while SoftBank Group traded weaker and Sanrio fell. Seoul's KOSPI reversed an early loss to trade higher on a rebound in chip giants, standing at 5,114.58 as of 04:32 UTC, up 54.89 points or 1.08%. Samsung Electronics rose 1.75% and SK hynix gained 3.53%. The Korean won traded at 1,357.1 per U.S. dollar as of 11:20 a.m. local time, up 5.9 won from the previous session's close. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index ended the morning session up 49 points at 24,531, after opening 143 points higher and touching 24,738, with half-day turnover of HK$97.41 billion. The Hang Seng TECH Index edged up less than 0.1% to 4,081. SMIC rose more than 2% and Hua Hong Semiconductor gained 3%, while CATL fell 3% and Meituan dropped more than 5%. Energy-storage firm RelyEZ rose as much as 124% in early trade on its debut. Taiwan's TAIEX stood at 42,001.22 as of 04:32 UTC, up 2,299.58 points or 5.79%, regaining the 42,000 level after falling 5,510 points last week. The rally followed the National Financial Stabilization Fund's authorization to intervene and new Financial Supervisory Commission curbs on short selling that took effect on Monday. TSMC rose 5.85% to NT$2,260, MediaTek gained 9.88% to NT$3,725 and Delta Electronics added 9.95%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite ended the morning session up 0.46% at 3,665.94, the Shenzhen Component Index rose 0.27% to 11,206.25 and the CSI 300 gained 0.24% to 4,064.17. Coal stocks advanced.