©Reuters.
Investing.com — Most Asian stocks rose slightly on Wednesday as major technology stocks tracked gains in their Wall Street peers, but the overall The increase was limited.
Wall Street indexes were positive for regional markets, pushing tech stocks higher as hype around artificial intelligence hit record highs following Oracle's (NYSE:) strong results.
However, it remains to be seen whether these gains will continue as US stock index futures fell slightly in Asian trading.
Asian tech stocks rise as AI cheers
South Korea's index was the day's best performer, rising 0.3%.A heavyweight in the high-tech world Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (KS:) rose 0.7% following media reports that the company plans to further advance AI by developing new high-speed memory chips.
Hong Kong indexes were flat as strength in tech stocks offset broader declines.A heavyweight in the high-tech world Baidu (HK:), BYD (HK:) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (HK:) were among the index's top gainers, rising between 2% and 4%.
TSMC (TW:) (NYSE:), the world's largest contract chip maker and a major supplier to NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:), rose 1.3% in Taiwan trading. Australia's tech stocks rose 0.4% despite declines in large banking and mining stocks.
New optimism in AI comes after cloud computing giant Oracle posted better-than-expected revenue and announced a further pivot to AI ahead of a joint announcement with Nvidia later this week. Sentiment towards technology has increased.
However, apart from the tech sector, overall Asian markets remained flat to low as better-than-expected US economic data reduced the likelihood of an early rate cut by the Federal Reserve. .
Concerns about slowing Chinese economic growth also played a role again, with the Chinese economy and the index down 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively, from four-month highs.
Futures prices for Indian indexes suggested they were opening slightly positive on the back of strength in large tech stocks. Along with the index, a new record high is within sight.
Japanese stocks fall as Bank of Japan concerns continue
Japanese stocks continued to fall from the all-time highs reached last week, with a decline rate of 0.2%.
Outside of the tech sector, Japanese stocks widened losses amid growing confidence that the Bank of Japan is nearing the end of its negative interest rate and yield curve control policies.
Reuters reports that the Bank of Japan is preparing to issue guidance on the scope of asset purchases after scaling back its ultra-dovish policy.
The Bank of Japan is set at , with traders pricing in a rate hike either then or during its late April meeting.
Wage increases are also expected from ongoing negotiations between Japan's major employers and employee unions, making this a key consideration for the Bank of Japan when raising interest rates.
