Asian shares advance, despite Wall Street’s tumble, as China pledges to boost consumer spending

Article content

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian markets advanced Friday, shrugging off another decline on Wall Street, with markets in China gaining after state-run banks and other financial institutions were ordered to do more to help spur more consumer spending.

Article content

Article content

U.S. futures and oil prices advanced.

Hong Kong’s benchmark jumped 2.5% to 24,038.85, while the Shanghai Composite index surged 1.9% to 3,420.65.

China’s National Financial Regulatory Administration issued a notice ordering financial institutions to help develop consumer finance and encourage use of credit cards, do more to aid borrowers who run into trouble, and be more transparent in their lending practices.

Article content

Economists say China needs consumers to spend more to get the economy out of the doldrums, although most have advocated broader, more fundamental reforms such as increasing wages, social welfare and support for public health and education.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 added 0.9% to 37,120.07, while South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.2% to 2,569.43.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,793.50, while Bangkok’s SET jumped 0.9%. The Taiex in Taiwan was up 0.3%.

On Thursday, Wall Street’s sell-off deepened as President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war dragged the S&P 500 more than 10% below the record it set last month.

A 10% drop is big enough that professional investors have a name for it — a “correction” — and the S&P 500’s 1.4% slide on Thursday sent the index to its first since 2023. The benchmark index closed at 5,521.52.

The losses came after Trump upped the stakes in his trade war by threatening 200% tariffs on Champagne and other European wines and alcohol, unless the EU rolls back a tariff on U.S. whiskey it imposed in response to U.S. tariffs on European steel and aluminum. Not even a double-shot of good news on the U.S. economy could stop the bleeding.

Article content

Article content

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.3% to 40,813.57, while the Nasdaq composite fell 2% to 17,303.01.

The dizzying swings for stocks result from uncertainty about how much pain Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies in order to reshape the country and world as he wants. The president has said he wants manufacturing jobs back in the United States, along with a smaller U.S. government workforce and other fundamental changes.

Measures of confidence in the economy for U.S. households and businesses have dropped due to uncertainty about which tariffs will stick from Trump’s barrage of on -again, off -again announcements. A pullback in spending that could sap vitality from the economy, and some U.S. businesses say they’ve already begun to see a change in their customers’ behavior.

Still, there was good news on the economic front Thursday.

One report showed inflation at the wholesale level last month was milder than economists expected, in line with an encouraging report a day earlier on consumer inflation.

A separate report said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected, suggesting the the job market is steady.

Article content

On Wall Steet, some stocks connected to the artificial-intelligence industry resumed their slide and weighed on stock indexes. Palantir Technologies, which offers an AI platform for customers, sank 4.8%. Super Micro Computer, which makes servers, lost 8%. Nvidia swung between gains and losses before finishing with a dip of 0.1%.

Such stocks have been under the most pressure in the U.S. stock market’s recent sell-off after critics said their prices shot too high in the frenzy around AI.

Other areas of the market that had also been riding big earlier momentum have seen their fortunes swing drastically. Elon Musk’s Tesla fell 3% following a rare back-to-back gain, and it’s down more than 40% so far in 2025.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Intel, which jumped 14.6% after naming former board member and semiconductor industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as its CEO. Tan, 65, will take over the daunting job next week, more than three months after Intel’s previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, abruptly retired amid a deepening downturn at the once-dominant chipmaker.

In other dealings early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 46 cents to $67.01 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, was up 44 cents at $70.32 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 148.63 Japanese yen from 147.82 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0845 from $1.0855.

___

AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.

Article content