Asian markets staged a strong rally on Friday as South Korea's battered market made a record comeback, stirring hopes that the recent selloff in AI-linked assets may be near an end.

In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index opened down 21 points, or 0.08 percent, at 25,837.

The tech index was up 14 points, or 0.3 percent, at 4,818 while the China enterprises index was down 21 points, or 0.24 percent, at 8,623.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index opened up 28 points, or 0.76 percent, at 3,833.

The Shenzhen Component Index surged 404 points, or 3.04 percent, to 13,690 while the ChiNext Index climbed 166 points, or 5.15 percent, at 3,411.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei ended the morning session up 4.4 percent at 64,572 after surging as much as 5.7 percent at one point.

In Seoul, the Kospi followed an even more heartening trajectory to be 721 points, or 12.9 percent, higher at 6,314 at one stage.

That followed surges in AI heavyweights Microsoft and Amazon on Wall Street overnight, lifting chip stocks broadly after upbeat earnings and forecasts from the pair eased concerns over hefty capital spending.

"Both the earnings as well as the sentiment are kind of coming back a bit after the really over-exaggerated move in the earlier part of the week," said Fabien Yip, a market analyst at IG.

"The AI demand story didn't really decelerate, it seems like it's still sustainable. So the selloff that we saw... is maybe the market overreacting to some of those concerns around [capex spending]." (Reuters & Xinhua)


Edited by Edmond Fong