Global Market Today: Asian stocks rally after US tech surge, oil slump

Asian stocks climbed, tracking Wall Street higher after a rally in technology shares and a slump in oil prices drove US benchmarks to their best day in seven months.

South Korea’s Kospi Index jumped more than 5% in early trading while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose nearly 3%. A broader gauge of Asian shares advanced 1.5% while futures for US benchmarks edged higher.

Elsewhere, US oil held losses in Asia after Brent crude slumped almost 6% in the previous session to settle below $93 a barrel. President Donald Trump said further strikes on Iran wouldn’t be necessary but the US remains “locked and loaded,” an indication that he’s winding down the conflict.


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On Monday, the S&P 500 rallied the most since April 8. A gauge of chipmakers surged nearly 7% while the Nasdaq 100 ended 3.4% higher. That came even as shares of Nvidia Corp. slid 4.3% amid a probe into Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang after his admission of an affair with a woman identified in a series of reports as a suspected Chinese spy.

The rally in stocks follows a tumultuous week during which chipmakers were sold off on concerns that the Democratic sweep of US Congress in the midterms would spur tighter regulation of the artificial intelligence industry. Meanwhile, a steady decline in oil prices has helped temper inflation fears.

“We continue to see economic conditions as supportive of corporate fundamentals,” said Brock Weimer at Edward Jones. “Thus, we recommend that investors maintain an overweight allocation to equities relative to fixed income.”

The recent tech selloff represented a reset rather than the start of a structural downturn in the AI investment cycle. But the rebound does not remove the risks created by concentrated positioning and elevated expectations, said Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi at UBS Chief Investment Office.

Meanwhile, Anthropic PBC can begin formally marketing its much-anticipated IPO as early as Tuesday, enabling it to make the case to investors that now is the right time to go public despite last week’s swoon in AI-related stocks.

On the economic front, investors will be watching October US consumer prices data, which is slated to be released Tuesday and is expected to show smaller increases than in September.

While it’s unlikely last week shut the door on volatility, what unfolded may have been more about investors repositioning within the AI trade rather than abandoning it altogether, noted Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley.

“There’s good reason to believe the stock market’s long-term rally is intact, especially given that the selloff overshadowed another week of strong economic data,” he added.