Stock market today: Asian stocks mostly up, although Chinese benchmarks falter | National News

Asian markets were mostly higher on Tuesday after another day of gains on Wall Street, although Chinese stocks faltered.

US futures and oil prices rose slightly.

The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo, which reopened after a national holiday, rose 1.5% to 38,784.91 and the Kospi in South Korea rose 1.9% to 2,728.05.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.9% to 18,420.38 and the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.1% to 3,136.62. Data on travel, retail spending and home sales during the week-long Golden Week holiday showed continued weakness in the economy.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7% to 7,739.00 ahead of a central bank interest rate decision.

Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.3% while India's Sensex was almost unchanged as the country began the third phase of its week-long national electoral process.

On Monday, the S&P 500 rose 1% to 5,180.74. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% to 38,852.27 and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.2% to 16,349.25.

Tech stocks were at the forefront, with well-known ringleaders Nvidia and Super Micro Computer once again driving the market higher. They've had a few problems lately, but the hype surrounding artificial intelligence technology has sent Nvidia up 86.1% year to date, after a 3.8% gain on Monday. Super Micro is up 192.1% after gaining 6.1%.

Berkshire Hathaway rose 1% after Warren Buffett's company reported its latest quarterly results over the weekend.

That helped offset a 9.7% decline for Spirit Airlines, which reported a slightly larger loss than expected. The airline said it faces increasing competition in many of its markets, particularly between the United States and Latin America.

Apple fell 0.9% after Berkshire Hathaway said it had reduced its stake in the tech giant.

The US stock market has been reeling since setting a record in late March. It failed for weeks because of fears that stubbornly high inflation would prevent, or at least delay, the Federal Reserve from making the interest rate cuts that Wall Street is demanding.

But late last week, markets experienced a burst of optimism after the jobs report came in weaker than expected. It suggested the U.S. economy could walk the tightrope of remaining strong enough to avoid a nasty recession, but not so strong that it puts too much upward pressure on inflation.

David Mericle, an economist at Goldman Sachs, said he still expects two rate cuts this year, in July and November, after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell “strongly opposed the possibility of further rate hikes” at his news conference last week.

This week is relatively quiet. According to FactSet, the majority of companies in the S&P 500 have already reported results for the first three months of the year, with more than three-quarters beating earnings expectations.

But some more big names are on the way, including The Walt Disney Co. and Uber Technologies.

In the bond market, which has recently dominated much of the stock market activity, government bond yields have remained largely stable.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.49% from 4.50% late Friday. The yield on two-year government bonds, which is more in line with the Fed's expectations, has also changed relatively little.

Traders are betting on a nearly 89 percent chance that the Fed will cut interest rates at least once before the end of the year, according to data from CME Group. This is an increase from the 81.6% probability observed a week earlier. Lower interest rates would help ease pressure on the economy and financial system.

According to strategists at Deutsche Bank, corporate earnings reports were better than expected not only in the US, but also in Europe and Japan. After four straight declines, global earnings growth is on track for a second straight quarter of growth.

In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose 24 cents to $78.72 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Monday it rose 37 cents.

Brent crude, the international standard, also rose 24 cents to $83.57 a barrel.

The dollar rose to 154.49 Japanese yen from 153.90 yen. The euro was almost unchanged at 1.0769 US dollars.

` business reporter Stan Choe contributed.

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