Asia-Pacific markets rose on Friday, with South Korea’s Kospi hitting a fresh intraday record and Japan’s Topix reaching a new all-time high, as investors looked past renewed military activity involving Iran and focused on gains in technology shares and record closes on Wall Street.
South Korea’s Kospi jumped more than 3% to close at 8,476.15, hitting a new intra-day high before paring gains slightly. The small-cap Kosdaq was down 2.68% to 1,074.8.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 2.53%, ending the trading day at 66,329.5 while the Topix rose 1.41% to a new record high of 3,957.17.
Shares of Samsung Electronics surged over 5% after the company said it had begun shipping samples of its latest high-bandwidth memory chip to its customers globally.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.62% to close at 8,731.7. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.55% in the final hour of trade, while the CSI 300 lost 0.45% to 4,892.12. India’s Nifty 50 dipped 0.5%.
Iran’s armed forces reportedly fired missiles at unspecified targets late Thursday, according to state media outlet Fars.
The latest military activity in southern Iran came just hours after the Pentagon said Tehran had fired a ballistic missile toward Kuwait and deployed attack drones in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier on Thursday, a White House official confirmed an Axios report saying the U.S. and Iran had “mostly agreed” on the terms of a deal aimed at temporarily halting the three-month conflict.
