ASIA MIDDAY MOVES | TAIEX Gains 2.6% as TSMC Leads, Hong Kong Slips on Rate-Hike Worries

According to Kabutan, Yonhap and HKET, Japanese stocks extended gains for a third session on Wednesday as major chip stocks drove the market higher. The Nikkei 225 stood at 61,131.13 as of 04:32 UTC, up 671.55 points, or 1.11%. Advantest rose 4.14% and Tokyo Electron added 2.79%, while SoftBank Group fell 0.52% and Sony slipped 0.26%. Seoul's KOSPI reversed an early decline as technology stocks rebounded, despite concerns that hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation could prompt further interest rate hikes. After opening 0.56% lower, the index stood at 5,343.41 as of 04:32 UTC, up 104.28 points, or 1.99%. Samsung Electronics rose 2.56% and SK hynix gained 5.53%. As of 11:20 a.m. local time, Korea Aerospace Industries had jumped 7.02% and Hanjin KAL had dropped 14.23%. The Korean won traded at 1,337.20 per U.S. dollar at that time. Hong Kong stocks fell as rate-hike pressure built. The Hang Seng Index ended the morning session down 204 points at 24,352 after opening 202 points lower, with half-day turnover of HK$83.82 billion; the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 1.4% to 4,028. Meituan dropped 3.51%, WuXi AppTec fell more than 3% and CATL rose 2% against the trend. Zhipu fell 0.5% in the half-day session after rising more than 8% earlier. Taiwan's TAIEX opened at 43,135.76 and stood at 43,831.02 as of 04:33 UTC, up 1,119.10 points, or 2.62%. TSMC rose 3.72% to NT$2,370, contributing more than 700 points to the index, after its board approved investments of up to $500 million each in Anthropic common shares and OpenAI preferred shares. MediaTek added 3.00%, and several printed circuit board makers hit their daily limit up. In mainland China, stocks were mixed at the midday break. As of 04:33 UTC, the Shanghai Composite stood at 3,654.95, down 0.24%; the Shenzhen Component Index was at 11,253.67, up 0.11%; and the CSI 300 was at 4,047.21, down 0.29%.