TL;DRAsian tech stocks surged on the Iran-US deal, with SoftBank up 10%, SK Hynix 6.4%, and Samsung 4.5%, pushing the Nikkei past 69,000.
Asian technology stocks surged on Monday after the United States and Iran announced a peace agreement, with AI and semiconductor companies posting the largest gains. SoftBank rose 10 per cent, SK Hynix climbed 6.42 per cent, and Samsung Electronics gained 4.5 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 topped 69,000 for the first time in history.
The rally was broad but concentrated in companies tied to AI infrastructure. Tokyo Electron, which manufactures chip fabrication equipment, jumped 7 per cent. Advantest, the world’s largest maker of semiconductor testing equipment, rose 7.67 per cent. Both companies derive significant revenue from the AI data centre buildout that has driven chip demand over the past two years.
In South Korea, the response was even more dramatic. The Kospi index surged 5.2 per cent to 8,545.98, triggering circuit breakers that briefly halted trading. SK Hynix, which crossed $1 trillion in market capitalisation just three weeks ago, added another $64 billion in a single session.
Samsung Electronics, which hit its own $1 trillion milestone on May 6, extended its gains further. Both companies manufacture the high-bandwidth memory chips that Nvidia uses in its AI accelerators. Their stocks had been weighed down by geopolitical risk premiums that evaporated overnight.
