Asian Stocks Rise as Rate-Hike Bets Ease, Oil Dips: Markets Wrap

(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks rose as technology shares rallied and a subdued US inflation report eased concerns about an imminent interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Brent crude snapped a six-day rally.

MSCI’s Asia Pacific equity index rose 0.8%, with chipmakers Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. the biggest contributors. South Korea’s Kospi Index rallied 3.7% to enter a technical bull market as a rebound in the artificial intelligence trade fueled a reversal from last month’s selloff.

Elsewhere caution prevailed as Cisco Systems Inc.’s earnings failed to impress, sending its shares down 4.1% in extended trading. Cerebras Systems Inc. tumbled 17% after sales declined at its hardware business.

Brent crude dropped 1% to $88.06 a barrel. Attention was also on the yen as it traded around the key level of 160 per dollar, keeping investors on the lookout for more intervention by officials in the foreign-exchange market.

Shorter-maturity Treasuries extended gains, with the two-year yield falling one basis point to 4.19% as traders pared expectations for Fed policy tightening. Money markets assigned less than a 50% chance of a September Fed rate increase.

US consumer prices rose 0.2% in July from a month earlier, a government report showed Wednesday, in line with economists’ forecasts in July, while a key underlying inflation measure matched its slowest pace since March 2021.

The US inflation data offered some relief to investors after signs of a cooling labor market had already tempered expectations for rate hikes. Still, persistent price pressures and volatile oil markets are complicating the outlook, leaving traders sensitive to incoming data for clues on whether policymakers can remain on hold.

The CPI reading and a cooler-than-expected jobs report “may keep hawkish Fed officials at bay in September,” said Gary Schlossberg, a global strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “However, we remain guarded on the near-term outlook for inflation amid volatile oil prices tied to the ongoing Middle East conflict along with lingering core price pressures from a strong economy and the AI boom.”

Still, concern about sticky inflation and widening budget deficits have helped keep longer-maturity Treasury yields elevated.

Thursday’s 30-year bond sale is expected to price at the highest financing rate in 25 years, after a $42 billion auction of 10-year notes drew the highest yield since 2007.

“The big surprise with a report that had no surprises is that a situation where inflation isn’t re-accelerating, coupled with the most recent, weak jobs report gives the Fed more time to wait,” said Chris Zaccarelli at Northlight Asset Management.

In other corners of the market, gold edged higher to trade around $4,430 an ounce.

The dollar weakened against most of it Group-of-10 peers, with traders remaining focused on the yen.

The yen was little changed at 159.31 per dollar after ending the previous session 0.1% weaker. The currency has depreciated more than 1% in August, unwinding some of the US-Japanese efforts to strengthen it at the turn of the month.

“Japanese authorities have already demonstrated a willingness to act, including coordinated action with the US Treasury, and levels approaching or exceeding the recent intervention zone are likely to keep traders cautious,” said Nathan Thooft at Manulife Investment Management. “We definitely are still on intervention watch.”

Corporate Highlights:

Cisco Systems Inc. delivered quarterly revenue and profit that beat estimates, but failed to live up to investors’ high expectations following blow-out results in the previous period. Cerebras Systems Inc. reported a surprising decline in hardware revenue, a sign it’s making inconsistent progress selling computers with a novel chip design. DeepSeek has set up an official social media account and posted job listings for a new team focused on helping develop artificial intelligence agents that can take on services like Anthropic PBC’s popular Claude Code. Tencent Holdings Ltd. more than doubled spending on AI projects and computing to about $7.8 billion last quarter, reflecting the gaming and social media leader’s intensifying efforts to catch up in a critical sphere with rivals like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

S&P 500 futures were little changed as of 9:57 a.m. Tokyo time Hang Seng futures fell 0.3% Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) rose 1.2% Japan’s Topix rose 0.6% Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5% Euro Stoxx 50 futures rose 0.3% Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was little changed at $1.1527 The Japanese yen was little changed at 159.33 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 6.7444 per dollar Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin was little changed at $63,518.41 Ether fell 0.3% to $1,879.81 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.68% Japan’s 10-year yield was unchanged at 2.840% Australia’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to 5.00% Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.2% to $82.31 a barrel Spot gold rose 0.5% to $4,428.65 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

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