Asian shares are mixed as tech shares lead Wall Street to more records

Audio By Carbonatix

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Friday after heavy buying of tech shares led benchmarks on Wall Street to more records.

US. futures and oil prices were higher.

Markets have largely shrugged off the shutdown of the U.S. government after Democrat and Republican lawmakers failed to reach agreement on funding.

U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders were not expected to meet again soon and the Democrats have held fast to their demands to preserve health care funding, warning of price spikes for millions of Americans nationwide.

Japan's Nikkei 225 closed nearly 1.9% higher at 45,769.50 as tech stocks gained despite data showing Japan’s unemployment rate rose 2.6% in August, the highest in 13 months and above the expected 2.4%.

Shares in Hitachi jumped 9.6% after it signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI to provide cooling systems for its data centers.

Stocks in the computer chip and artificial-intelligence industries also have climbed this week after OpenAI announced partnerships with South Korean companies for Stargate, a $500 billion project aimed at building AI infrastructure.

Stock exchanges in China and South Korea were closed Friday for holidays.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index shed nearly 1.1% to 26,976.37 as traders sold to lock in profits from Thursday's gains.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added nearly 0.5% to 8,987.40. India's BSE Sensex rose less than 0.1%, while Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.9%.

Thursday on Wall Street, the S&P 500 added 0.1% to its all-time high set the day before, closing at 6,715.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2% to 46,519.72, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.4% to 22,844.05.

The government shutdown means this week’s usual report on jobless claims was delayed. An even more consequential report, Friday’s monthly tally of jobs created and destroyed across the economy, will likely also not arrive on schedule.

That increases uncertainty when much on Wall Street is riding on investors’ expectation that the job market is slowing by enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it leads to a recession.

So far, the U.S. stock market has looked past the delays of such data. Shutdowns of the U.S. government have tended not to hurt the economy or stock market much, and the thinking is that this one could be similar, even if Trump has threatened large-scale firings of federal workers this time around.

That left corporate announcements as the main drivers of trading Thursday.

Excitement around AI and the massive spending underway because of it are a major reason the U.S. stock market has hit record after record, along with hopes for easier interest rates. But AI stocks have become so dominant, and so much money has poured into the industry that worries are rising about a potential bubble that could eventually lead to disappointment for investors.

Still, Advanced Micro Devices climbed 3.5%, and Broadcom gained 1.4%. Nvidia’s 0.9% rise was the strongest single force pushing the S&P 500 upward.

In other dealings early Friday, benchmark U.S. crude added 29 cents to $60.77 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 30 cents to $64.41 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar climbed to 147.54 Japanese yen from 147.26 yen. The euro edged up to $1.1726 from $1.1717.