Asia Morning August 13

Asia Morning: Tech Stocks Lead U.S. Market Rebound

On Wednesday, U.S. stocks posted a strong rebound with tech shares gaining the most. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 289 points (+1.05%) to 27976, the S&P 500 increased 46 points (+1.40%) to 3380, and the Nasdaq 100 surged 281 points (+2.59%) to 11157.

Nasdaq 100 Index: Daily Chart

Source: GAIN Capital, TradingView

Meanwhile, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats and the White House were still far apart regarding any agreement over a new Covid-19 relief package.

Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment (+3.79%), Technology Hardware & Equipment (+2.84%) and Retailing (+2.27%) sectors performed the best. Semiconductor stocks such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +7.45%), Qualcomm (QCOM +6.4%) and Nvidia (NVDA +5.44%) were top gainers.

Tesla (TSLA +13.12%) shares jumped after the company announced a 5 for 1 stock split.

Official data showed that U.S. Core Consumer Prices rose 0.6% on month in July, the largest gain since 1991.

European stocks advanced further. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index gained 1.11%, Germany's DAX 30 rose 0.86% and France's CAC 40 was up 0.90%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 surged 2.04% despite the U.K. economy contracting by 20.4% on quarter in the second quarter and confirming a recession.

U.S. government bond prices declined further, as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 0.669% from 0.657% Tuesday.

Following a 5.70% plunged on Monday, spot gold sank further to $1,863 an ounce before bouncing back to close at $1,915. Spot silver price rebounded 2.8% to $25.50 an ounce.

Oil prices increased after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a reduction of 4.51 million barrels in crude-oil stockpiles last week, much sharper than a reduction of 2.52 million barrels expected. U.S. WTI crude oil futures (September) jumped 2.5% to $42.67 a barrel.

On the forex front, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index retreated 0.3% on day to 93.42, snapping a three-day rally.

EUR/USD rose 0.4% to 1.1787. Official data showed that the eurozone's industrial production grew 9.1% on month in June (+10.0% expected).

GBP/USD slipped 0.1% to 1.3037. Government data showed that U.K. GDP declined 21.7% on year in the second quarter (-22.3% expected), while industrial production grew 9.3% on month in June (+9.0% expected)

USD/JPY climbed 0.4% to a three-week high of 106.88.

NZD/USD was flat at 0.6575. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 0.25% as expected, while expanding the Large Scale Asset Purchase programme up to 100 billion New Zealand dollars from 60 billion New Zealand dollars previously. RBNZ said any future move to a lower or negative official cash rate could provide an effective way to deliver additional monetary stimulus if needed.

Other commodity-linked currencies were broadly higher against the greenback. AUD/USD gained 0.3% to 0.7161, while USD/CAD slid 0.4% to 1.3249, down for a third straight session.

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