Sunrise scene of Seoul downtown city skyline, Aerial view of N Seoul Tower at Namsan Park in twilight sky in morning. The best viewpoint and trekking from inwangsan mountain in Seoul city, South Korea
Mongkol Chuewong | Moment | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed on Thursday after all the major stock indexes on Wall Street notched record highs, shrugging off global political turmoil.
Investors are continuing to monitor the political situation in South Korea and France. Less than a day after he declared martial law, lawmakers in South Korea filed a motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The leader of Yoon’s ruling People Power Party, Han Dong-hoon, said on Thursday that the party will try to oppose the motion, Yonhap News Agency reported. In emails sent to NBC News, Yoon’s office has maintained that his call for martial law was constitutional. Lawmakers could vote for the bill as early as Friday.
Meanwhile, French lawmakers on Wednesday passed a no-confidence vote against the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who tried to push through a contested budget bill without parliamentary approval by deploying special constitutional powers.
South Korea released its revised gross domestic product in the third quarter, which showed the economy expanding 0.1% quarter-on-quarter, and 1.5% on an annual basis. The figures were the same as advanced estimates.
South Korea’s market opened higher but quickly lost momentum. The Kospi fell marginally by 0.39% while Kosdaq lost 0.69%
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.22% higher.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 0.88%, while the Topix rose 0.27%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures dropped 0.85% while mainland China’s CSI 300 index shed 0.04%.
In the U.S. on Wednesday, all three major indexes hit all-time highs during the session and closed at records, with tech shares leading the gains.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 308.51 points, or 0.69%, to 45,014.04, crossing the 45,000 threshold for the first time.
The S&P 500 broad market index gained 0.61% to close at 6086.49, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.3% to close at 19,735.12.
A rally came as investors digested Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments Wednesday that the recent strength of the U.S. economy means U.S. central bank can afford to be “a little more cautious.”
Investors are awaiting the U.S. November unemployment report, due Friday, which would provide some insights into the Fed’s future policy moves. The next rate decision comes in two weeks, and markets are pricing in a roughly 78% chance of a quarter percentage point rate cut by the Federal Open Market Committee, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Lisa Kailai Han and Hakyung Kim contributed to this report.
