Market Update: Asian Markets Reach New Heights
People gathered to celebrate the New Year at the Bank of China building in Central, Hong Kong, on January 1, 2026.
Asian markets experienced a surge on Friday, with the Kospi in Korea showing a remarkable increase of 1.96%, marking a new record high. Notably, Samsung Electronics made headlines with a notable rise of about 6%, as customers expressed satisfaction with their high memory bandwidth (HBM) chip.
The smaller Kosdaq also saw a change, climbing 1.84%.
Meanwhile, some regions in Asia, like Japan and mainland China, remained closed due to holiday observances.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was boosted mainly by stocks in the education services sector, which jumped by 2.43%. A particular highlight was Shanghai Meilian, an AI chip design firm, which skyrocketed over 100% after launching on the Hang Seng Index with a significant HK$5.58 billion ($717 million) IPO.
Interestingly, the public offer saw an overwhelming response, being subscribed more than 2,300 times, with the international offer being 25.95 times oversubscribed, even after the upsize option was exercised.
On another note, Singapore’s economy reported a 5.7% year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter, primarily driven by robust manufacturing activities leading up to December. This figure surpassed last quarter’s revised growth of 4.3%. In his New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong noted that the nation achieved a surprising overall economic growth of 4.8% for 2025.
The Straits Times Index in Singapore also reached an all-time high on Friday, closing up by 0.43%.
In India, the Nifty 50 index rose by 0.41%, while the Sensex increased by 0.39%. However, Sapphire Foods, a casual dining restaurant operator, experienced a dip in its stock price, dropping as much as 5.93% before recovering after a $934 million merger announcement with peer Debiyani.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 saw a small uptick, rising by 0.15%.
Looking at U.S. markets, stock futures were positive during the early Asian trading session, with S&P futures up 0.15%, Nasdaq 100 futures climbing 0.12%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rising by 0.16%. Nevertheless, in U.S. trading earlier in the week, the S&P 500 fell by 0.74%, with the Nasdaq Composite down 0.76% and the Dow Jones down 0.63%. Despite this, the S&P 500 has risen by 16.39% year-to-date, fueled in part by a 20.36% increase in the Nasdaq, largely attributed to excitement surrounding AI technologies. The Dow, however, lagged behind, gaining only 12.97% in 2025, possibly due to its limited tech exposure.
