On Tuesday, October 28th, driven by tech giants, the three major stock indices in the U.S. closed at historic highs. With the market widely expecting the Federal Reserve (Fed) to cut interest rates, Asian stocks rose across the board, and the Nikkei 225 index in Japan even surpassed 51,000 points for the first time.
Nvidia’s stock price rose nearly 5% on Tuesday, increasing its market value by over $230 billion, bringing its total market value to $4.89 trillion. CEO Huang Renxun announced at the GTC conference in Washington D.C. that the company has reached a significant collaboration with the U.S. government to build seven AI supercomputers for the Department of Energy.
These supercomputers bear the heavy responsibility of U.S. national security, some being used to assist in maintaining and developing the nuclear arsenal, as well as researching alternative energy sources like nuclear fusion. Huang Renxun also revealed that this collaboration has skyrocketed orders for Nvidia’s Blackwell and Rubin AI chips to $500 billion over the next five quarters, reaching a historic peak.
Microsoft, the world’s second-largest company by market capitalization, also rose by 2%, pushing its market value to $4.03 trillion. Microsoft and OpenAI announced a restructuring agreement that will transform the developer of ChatGPT into a public benefit corporation (PBC), with prospects of going public.
Boosted by the rise of tech giants like Nvidia and Microsoft, the three major U.S. stock indices closed at record highs again. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.34% to close at 47,706.37 points, the S&P 500 index increased by 0.23% to 6,890.89 points, and the Nasdaq composite index rose by 0.8% to 23,827.49 points.
Additionally, this week Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and other tech giants are scheduled to release their quarterly financial reports, with investors anticipating forward-looking predictions on AI capital expenditures.
Encouraged by positive news in the U.S. market, the Asia-Pacific markets showed strong performance on Tuesday. As of 10:00 Taipei time, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index surged by 1.89% to reach 51,167.76 points, marking the first time in history it surpassed the 51,000-point threshold. The South Korean KOSPI index rose by 1.32% to 4,063.28 points, and the Taiwan Weighted Index also climbed by 1.07% to 28,247.77 points.
Hong Kong markets were closed on Tuesday for the Chung Yeung Festival, while the Hang Seng Index closed down by 0.33% on Monday. The Shanghai Composite Index edged up by 0.08% to close at 3,991.52 points.
Market attention is focused on the Federal Reserve interest rate decision scheduled for Wednesday. According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the market expects a high probability of 99.9% for the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to announce a 25 basis point rate cut, which would bring the federal funds rate to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%.
Veteran investor Louis Navellier wrote in his daily briefing, “If Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell leans dovish, the market’s bet on more rate cuts in the future will increase, further driving market momentum.”
Furthermore, investors are also digesting international trade-related news, including the U.S. and Japan signing an agreement to strengthen critical mineral supply to reduce reliance on China, as well as expectations for a meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping to ease U.S.-China trade tensions.