Asian shares are mixed and gold and silver climb higher after a retreat on Wall St
HONG KONG (AP) — Asia shares were mixed on Wednesday following a retreat on Wall Street on selling of technology stocks, while gold and silver continued to regain ground after a recent sell-off.
U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices advanced.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.6% to 54,391.58, although it was still trading higher than at the start of the week. Shares of chipmaker Tokyo Electron fell 2%, while testing equipment maker Advantest lost 1.6%. SoftBank Group edged up 0.2%.
Shares of Nintendo plunged more than 10%, even as the Japanese video-game maker posted strong profits on Tuesday, as investors and analysts expressed concern about whether sales momentum can be maintained for the Switch 2 game console that was rolled out last year.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.9% to 5,336.01, despite weakness in some technology-related stocks. Samsung Electronics fell 0.2%, and chipmaker SK Hynix sank 1.4%.
The index has been setting records nearly daily.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.4% to 26,724.94. The Shanghai Composite index was flat at 4,067.39.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.9% higher at 8,934.20.
Taiwan’s Taiex was up 0.3%.
Gold and silver prices gained on Wednesday, as investors continued to shift funds into safe haven assets over concerns over geopolitical tensions, a weaker U.S. dollar and tariff uncertainties.
Gold rose 3.8%, while the price of silver jumped 5.1%. Those gains followed a sell-off, when the price of gold fell to less than $4,500 on Monday, from close to $5,600 a week earlier. Silver sank more than 31% on Friday.
“After plunging from record highs amid elevated volatility, precious metals attracted renewed buying interest,” ING Bank analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a note.
“For gold, the recent correction does not point to a shift in the underlying macro narrative,” they said. Safe haven demand is among factors that will remain supportive of gold prices over the medium term, they added.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 dropped 0.8% to 6,917.81. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% to 49,240.99. The Nasdaq composite shed 1.4% to 23,255.19.
Nvidia, one of the world’s most valuable companies, fell 2.8%. Shares of Microsoft fell 2.9%. Investors have been rotating in and out of technology-related stocks on concerns over whether their shares were being overvalued and if their heavy spending on artificial intelligence investments will pay off.
PayPal sank 20.3% following weaker-than-expected results for the latest quarter. Pfizer dipped 3.3%, despite stronger-than-expected quarterly profit results.
In other dealings early Wednesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 59 cents to $63.80 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 53 cents to $67.86 per barrel. Oil prices were firmer partly due to tensions resurfacing between the U.S. and Iran after a U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone flying close to a U.S. aircraft carrier, analysts at ING Bank said.
The U.S. dollar rose to 156.29 Japanese yen from 155.77 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1833, up from $1.1818.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.