Asia-Pacific markets rose on Friday, with South Korea’s Kospi hitting an intraday high and Japan’s TOPIX hitting a new all-time high as investors overlooked new Iran-related military activity and focused on rising technology stocks and a record close on Wall Street.
South Korea’s Kospi soared more than 3% to close at 8,476.15, hitting a new intraday high before paring its gains slightly. The small-cap Kosdaq fell 2.68% to 1,074.8.
Japanese Nikkei Stock Average rose 2.53% to close at 66,329.5, while TOPIX rose 1.41% to a record high of 3,957.17.
Samsung Electronics shares soared more than 5% after the company announced it had begun shipping samples of its latest high-bandwidth memory chips to customers around the world.
In Australia, S&P/ASX 200 It rose 1.62% to close at 8,731.7. hong kong Hang Seng Index The CSI300 was up 0.55% in the last hour of trading, while the CSI300 was down 0.45% at 4,892.12. India’s Nifty 50 fell 0.5%.
The Iranian military reportedly fired a missile at an unspecified target late Thursday, according to state media Fars news agency.
The latest military activity in southern Iran comes just hours after the Pentagon announced that Iran had fired a ballistic missile toward Kuwait and deployed attack drones in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier on Thursday, White House officials confirmed an Axios report that the United States and Iran had “mostly agreed” on the terms of a deal aimed at pausing the three-month conflict.
