Asia-Pacific stocks gained early Wednesday, building on a rally for tech and consumer stocks in the U.S.’s first trading day of 2018.
In China, the CSI 300 — made up of the biggest companies on both the Shanghai SHCOMP, +0.62% and Shenzhen 399106, +0.77% indexes — climbed 1.2%.
Overnight, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.5%, with Apple AAPL, +1.79% climbing 1.8%. On Wednesday morning, Samsung Electronics 005930, +1.18% rose 3% shortly after opening, though it was recently 1.2% higher. The Kospi index SEU, +0.27% gained 0.3%.
The Taiex Y9999, +0.85% in Taiwan, where many Apple suppliers are based, climbed 0.7% to hit a fresh five-week high; index heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 2330, +1.94% climbed 2.2%.
Tech stocks also helped push Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, +0.15% to another 10-year high; it rose 0.4%. Tencent Holdings 0700, +1.05% , Sunny Optical Technology 2382, +0.37% and AAC Technologies Holdings 2018, +1.80% all rose about 2% Wednesday morning.
“There is a lot of anticipation that earnings will increase” for the sector, said Shane Chanel, an equities adviser at ASR Wealth Advisers. But he cautioned that any misstep could burst the market’s bubble.
Indexes in New Zealand NZ50GR, +0.32% and the Philippines PSEI, +1.94% set all-time records on Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei NIK, -0.08% was an outlier, down slightly in morning trading.
Despite strength for large mining companies BHP Billiton BHP, +1.68% and Rio Tinto RIO, +2.21% , the S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.15% was just 0.1% higher, due to declines in consumer and health-care stocks.
The U.S. dollar, which on Tuesday logged its largest drop in four years, as the WSJ Dollar Index fell for a seventh-straight session. It was recently up 0.1%.
And bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.64% has managed to stay above $15,000, according to price data from CoinDesk.