This is C온라인카지노사이트's live blog covering Asia-Pacific markets.

Asia-Pacific markets were mostly higher Wednesday as investors assess U.S.-China trade talk, after key Wall Street benchmarks rose on easing trade tensions between the two global economic superpowers.

Japan's benchmark slipped 0.14% to close at 38,128.13 giving up gains after four consecutive positive sessions. South Korea's rose 1.23% to close at 2,640.57.

Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.13% to close at 8,279.6.

Hong Kong's rose 2.3% to close at 23,640.65 while mainland China's CSI 300 rose 1.21% to close at 3,943.21.

Wall Street rebounded after the U.S. and China reached a temporary truce on tariffs earlier this week. The development led to stocks surging with the Dow gaining more than 1,000 points Monday.

At current levels, however, Julius Baer strategists remain cautious, adding that the bank "does not share the prevailing optimism" regarding a quick resolution of the trade conflict.

"Even if new deals are announced, they are likely to involve complex conditions and protracted implementation timelines, making a full rollback of tariffs to pre-conflict levels unlikely," the bank said in a Tuesday note.

Asian chip-related stocks rose after shares of Nvidia jumped following CEO Jensen Huang's remarks that to Saudi firm Humain, a new AI startup owned by the country's Public Investment Fund.

U.S. stock futures were little changed as Wall Street looks to extend a strong start to the week. Futures tied to the  were flat, as were .  futures added 30 points, or less than 0.1%.

Overnight stateside, the three major averages closed mixed. The  rose, clawing back into positive territory for the year as investors extended the sharp gains seen in the previous session. The broad market index gained 0.72% to close at 5,886.55, while the  climbed 1.61% to end at 19,010.08.

The  lagged, losing 269.67 points, or 0.64%, as a nearly 18% drop in shares of  pressured the benchmark.

— C온라인카지노사이트's Brian Evans and Yun Li contributed to this report.

2025 is a "pause year" for markets: Morgan Stanley Investment Management

2025 is a "pause year " for markets as the strong performance in previous years wear off and global trade anxieties loom, Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management told C온라인카지노사이트's "" Wednesday.

It is "not unusual" to experience a lackluster year, where more volatility is observed, following strong years as expectations had grown so much, he added.

"From the low of October 2022 through the end of last year ... the markets [were] up 67%. That's a massive move in a short period of time. And the result was that we began this year with a lot of optimism, optimistic predictions," Slimmon said.

Nonetheless, there is room for this year's earnings growth to perform better than the stock market return, he added.

Slimmon also attributed the "pause year" to the Mag 7's not seeing returns yet on their hefty investments in AI rollouts.

"Their [Mag 7] return of asset capital is coming down because they haven't seen the return on this investment yet. I think it will happen. I'm just not sure it will happen this year, and they are very big weighting in the S&P, so I think that will also be kind of an anchor to the S&P this year," he noted.

Global uncertainty on trade policy has also slammed the brakes on capex spending on AI which could ultimately see the "Mag 7 lag" lasting the year and picking up in the next, he added.

- Connie Tan, Neha Hegde

Globe Telecom's new CEO banks on experience and fintech investments

Philippines' Globe Telecom will leverage on its "two very strong legs" – its experience in telco connectivity and fintech – to navigate an increasingly competitive telco space, the firm's new CEO Carl Raymond Cruz told C온라인카지노사이트's "" Wednesday.

"It's very easy to actually go into pricing. Anyone can do that. But for Globe, what made us so successful in this particular market has been really differentiating ourselves from an experience perspective, and that will continue to be the key focus area in the next quarters to come," Cruz said.

"We've seen traffic moving up the latter part of the first quarter, and we do expect the second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter, if this holds up, we can really monetize the investments we've done so far in the network," he added.

Cruz also said he is "very optimistic" about the group's future in view of its fintech investments in Mynt, a mobile financial services firm and parent company of mobile payments service GCash.

- Diane Jorolan, Neha Hegde

Barclays expects India's Monetary Policy Committee to cut rates in June

Barclays expects India's Monetary Policy Committee to cut rates in its June meeting on the back of easing headline inflation. The MPC sets the benchmark interest rate in India.

India's headline inflation eased to , marking the sixth consecutive month of decline. The reading was lower than March's data of 3.34%, as well as lower than Reuters' expectations of 3.27%.

"We therefore advance our expectation of a 25bp rate cut from the August MPC meeting to June," Barclays' analysts wrote in a note.

—Lee Ying Shan

Chinese e-commerce JD.com shares climb after net revenue jumps

Shares of rose 3.87% after the Chinese e-commerce firm reported a 15.8% jump in net revenue to 301.1 billion yuan ($41.5 billion) for the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year.

The earnings beat Citi's estimates of 289 billion yuan.

"There is massive market potential with significant unmet demand from users for food safety and quality... and we believe JD has the strengths and capabilities to address this demand," Citi's analysts, led by its equity research analyst Alicia Yap, wrote in a note following the earnings result.

—Lee Ying Shan

Samsung Electronics to acquire heating and cooling solutions provider FläktGroup for 1.5 billion euros

 on Wednesday that it would acquire all shares of German-based FläktGroup, a leading heating and cooling solutions provider, for 1.5 billion euros ($1.68 billion) from European investment firm Triton. 

Samsung said the acquisition would reinforce its commitment to its heating, ventilation and air conditioning business as the market experiences rapid growth. 

"Our commitment is to continue investing in and developing the high-growth HVAC business as a key future growth engine," said TM Roh, Acting Head of the Device eXperience (DX) Division at Samsung Electronics.  

Shares of Samsung Electronics added 0.7%.

Read the full story .

—Dylan Butts

Japan and South Korea chip stocks climb after Nvidia rally

Major Japan and South Korea chip-related stocks advanced at the open after Nvidia shares rose following that the company will sell more than 18,000 of its latest artificial intelligence chips to Saudi company Humain.

 gained 4.78%, while and climbed 1.90% and 2.44% respectively. added 2.22%.

Japanese technology conglomerate , which owns a stake in British chip designer Arm, saw its shares jump over 5%.

Shares of South Korean memory chipmakers also rallied. SK Hynix gained 3.53%, while Samsung Electronics added 1.23%.

—Lee Ying Shan

South Korea unemployment dips to lowest level since November 2024

Unemployment in in April from the previous month, marking its fourth straight month of decline and its lowest point since November 2024.

Meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 2.7% in April, down from 2.9% in March.

Data from the country's national statistics site revealed that the economically active population grew to 29.74 million people, up 0.6% year on year.

South Korea's labor force participation rate stood at 65.1% in April, up 0.1 percentage points year on year.

— Lim Hui Jie

S&P 500 closes higher, turns positive for the year

Continuing investor optimism toward cooling trade tensions between the U.S. and China helped push the S&P 500 into the green for the year.

The broad market index advanced 0.72% to close at 5,886.55. The S&P 500 now has a gain of 0.08% in 2025.

The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.61% to finish the session at 19,010.08, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 269.67 points, or 0.64%, to 42,140.43.

— Brian Evans

Nvidia shares rally, putting stock on track to reenter the exclusive $3 trillion club

shares jumped more than 6% on Tuesday after CEO Jensen Huang to Saudi Arabian firm Humain.

Huang's announcement was made as part of a White House-led trip to the region that included President Donald Trump and other tech CEOs. Nvidia said its first deployment will use its GB300 Blackwell chips, some of its most advanced chips that were officially announced earlier this year. The chips will be used in a 500 megawatt data center in Saudi Arabia.

Nvidia's recent surge has put the stock on track to close above a $3 trillion market cap for the first time since Feb. 28. The company has overtaken Apple to be the world's second-most-valuable name, just behind .

Nvidia shares have gained more than 20% this month. Still, the stock is in the red for the year and remains about 14% below its year high.

— Pia Singh