Shares advanced Wednesday in Asia after U.S. stocks drifted closer to their records, while U.S. futures edged lower.
South Korea’s Kospi led gains in the region, jumping 2.4% to 2,763.32 after the liberal opposition candidate Lee Jae-myung was elected president.
Lee's victory caps months of political turmoil triggered by the stunning but brief imposition of martial law by the now-ousted conservative leader Yoon Suk Yeol. Top priorities will include government spending and trade negotiations with the United States.
“Regardless of his political roots, boosting growth will be a key challenge. Even before President Trump’s tariffs hit exports, the economy contracted by 0.2% quarter on quarter, seasonally adjusted, in the first three months of the year. The figures highlighted fragile business activity and private consumption,” Min Joo Kang of ING Economics said in a report.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index surged 1% on gains for technology and pharmaceutical companies.
Toyota Motor Corp.'s shares rose 2% after it announced it was buying Toyota Industries Corp., a maker of auto parts and lift trucks, for $33 billion and taking it private. Toyota Industries' shares tumbled 12.5%.
Chinese shares were modestly higher. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 0.6% to 23,650.12, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.3% to 3,372.85.
Taiwan's Taiex climbed 2.1%.
Investors were watching for updates on President Donald Trump’s tariffs, including the imposition of 50% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum due to take effect Wednesday. With industries lobbying for him to expand that protection to products made from those materials, analysts say prices of many basic items will likely rise.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% and was less than 3% away from its all-time high set earlier this year, at 5,970.37. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5% to 42,519.64. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.8% to 19,398.96.
Dollar General jumped 15.8% for one of the market’s bigger gains after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the start of the year than analysts expected.
Many companies have cut or withdrawn their financial forecasts for the upcoming year because of the uncertainty caused by Trump’s on-again-off-again rollout of tariffs. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Tuesday that it’s forecasting 1.6% growth for the U.S. economy this year, down from 2.8% last year.
A report on Tuesday morning showed U.S. employers were advertising more job openings at the end of April than economists expected, the latest signal that the labor market remains resilient. It set the stage for a more important report coming on Friday, which will show how much hiring and firing U.S. employers did in May.
