Stock market today: Asian stocks ignore Wall Street blues as China leaves interest rate unchanged

Markets in Asia, with the exception of Shanghai, were broadly higher on Monday, shrugging off the Wall Street blues after big tech stocks posted their worst week since the 2020 COVID crash.

Oil prices fell while US futures rose.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng led the region, gaining 1.6% to 16,489.08. But the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5% to 3,050.89 after the People's Bank of China kept its prime rates on 1-year and 5-year loans unchanged.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 added 0.4% to 37,219.47 and the yen weakened further. The U.S. dollar rose to 154.69 yen from 154.59 yen, trading at levels not seen since 1990.

South Korea's Kospi jumped 0.8% to 2,613.61.

Australia S&The P/ASX 200 jumped 1% to 7,640.30.

Friday, the S&The P 500 fell 0.9% to close its third consecutive week of decline. It finished at 4,967.23, 5.5% below its record set late last month.

It's his longest streak since September, before embarking on an adventure that has sent him on a string of records this year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6% to 37,986.40 and the Nasdaq composite fell 2% to 15,282.01.

The market's worst performers included several stocks that had been its biggest stars. Super Micro Computer lost more than a fifth of its value, falling 23.1%. The company, which sells servers and storage systems used in AI and other computing systems, has soared nearly 227% for the past year.

Nvidia, another stock that soared to dizzying heights due to Wall Street's frenzy around artificial intelligence technology, also gave up some of its big recent gains. It fell 10% and was the heaviest weight in the S&P500, by far, due to its enormous size.

The technological values ​​of S&The P 500 overall lost 7.3% this week, its worst performance since March 2020, as some global giants reported discouraging trends. ASML, a Dutch company that is a major supplier to the semiconductor industry, for example, reported lower than expected orders for the start of 2024.

The biggest threat was the discouraging and dawning realization on Wall Street that interest rates could likely stay high for much longer.

Senior Fed officials said this week they could keep interest rates at their high levels for some time. It's a disappointment for traders after the Fed signaled earlier that three interest rate cuts could be possible this year.

High rates hurt the prices of all kinds of investments. Some of the hardest-hit stocks tend to be those considered the most expensive and require investors to wait the longest for strong growth, which can leave tech stocks vulnerable.

Fed officials insist they want more evidence that inflation is heading toward their 2% target before lowering the Fed's main interest rate, which is at its highest level since 2001.

With interest rates unlikely to be much help in the near term, companies are under even greater pressure to generate earnings growth.

Netflix fell 9.1% despite posting higher-than-expected profits for the latest quarter. Analysts called the performance strong, but the streaming giant disappointed some investors by announcing it would stop providing updates on its subscriber numbers every three months starting next year.

American Express helped limit market losses, up 6.2%. It announced a profit for the last quarter that was higher than analysts expected. Fifth Third Bancorp rose 5.9% after also beating expectations.

In the oil market, benchmark U.S. crude lost 68 cents to $81.54 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 12 cents on Friday, to $82.22 a barrel.

Brent crude fell 72 cents to $86.57 per barrel. On Friday, it returned to $87.29 after briefly rising above $90 overnight on concerns about fighting in the Middle East. Iranian troops fired air defenses at a major air base and nuclear site in an apparent Israeli drone attack, sparking market concerns. But crude prices pared gains as traders wondered how Iran would respond.