Asian markets rallied hard with Wall Street on Friday as South Korea's battered market made a record comeback, stirring hopes that the recent selloff in AI-linked assets may be near an end.The yen was also firmly in the spotlight, holding some distance away from a 40-year trough after suspected coordinated intervention from various authorities, which came ahead of the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) rate decision later in the day.
Long-end US Treasury yields held near 19-year highs while short-end yields eased, steepening the curve as doubts grow over the Federal Reserve's ability to anchor inflation expectations.
South Korea's Kospi leapt more than 10 percent on Friday, reversing steep losses from earlier in the week. Japan's Nikkei similarly advanced 4.5 percent and MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 4.6 percent.
That followed surges in AI heavyweights Microsoft and Amazon overnight, lifting chip stocks broadly after upbeat earnings and forecasts from the pair eased concerns over hefty capital spending.
"Both the earnings as well as the sentiment are kind of coming back a bit after the really overexaggerated move in the earlier part of the week," said Fabien Yip, a market analyst at IG.
