BANGKOK (news agencies) — World shares were mixed on Thursday after China rolled out more moves to try to boost its lagging stock markets by raising confidence that prices will rise.
Germany’s DAX gained 0.2% to 21,300 and the CAC 40 in Paris edged 0.1% higher to 7,847.38. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped less than 0.1% to 8,539.88.
The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.2% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down less than 0.1%.
Officials in Beijing said Chinese pension funds and mutual funds would be required to increase purchases of shares, to guarantee that market value rises. Listed companies will also be encouraged to do more stock buybacks and raise dividends to improve shareholder returns, the head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Wu Qing told reporters.
Share prices in Shanghai bounced higher, closing up 0.5% at 3,230.16. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped after initial gains, losing 0.4% to 19,700.56.
“The relief over Donald Trump not announcing new tariffs on China during his inauguration didn’t last long,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya of Swissquote Bank said in a commentary, noting the U.S. president’s comment that he still plans new 10% tariffs on imports of Chinese goods. With buying enthusiasm weak, “the shooting star pattern of today hints that sentiment remains bearish for Chinese equities,” she wrote.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index gained 0.8% to 39,958.87, helped by gains in technology shares, including those of SoftBank Group Corp. It is investing heavily in Stargate, a joint venture the White House has announced will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of artificial intelligence.
The partnership formed by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank is due to invest up to $500 billion. SoftBank’s shares rose 5.1% on Thursday in Tokyo trading after jumping 11% the day before.
Fuji Media Holdings dropped 7.8% after Masahiro Nakai, one of Japan’s top TV hosts and a former pop star, said Thursday he was retiring to take responsibility over sexual assault allegations that are part of a wave roiling Japan’s entertainment industry. The Fuji TV scandal triggered an avalanche of lost advertising at one of the networks where he worked.
Elsewhere in Asia, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia fell 0.6% to 8,378.70, while the Kospi in Seoul lost 1.2% to 2,515.49.
India’s Sensex rose 0.3% while the SET in Bangkok shed 0.7%.
On Wednesday, Netflix, Oracle and other big technology stocks lifted Wall Street Wednesday as their profits pile higher and excitement builds around the moneymaking prospects of AI .
Oracle added 6.8% and Nvidia, the company whose chips are powering much of the move into AI, rose 4.4%.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and the Dow added 0.3%. The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.3%.
The gains came even though most U.S. stocks fell under the weight of higher Treasury yields.
The smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index lost 0.6%, for example, and roughly two out of every three stocks in the S&P 500 sank. But gains for big, influential stocks were more than enough to make up for it.
Netflix jumped 9.7% after it said live events like football games and a Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight helped it add nearly 19 million subscribers during the latest quarter.
In the cryptocurrency market, where prices have surged on hopes President Donald Trump will make Washington friendlier to the industry, bitcoin was sitting just above $102,000, according to CoinDesk. It had set a record above $109,000 on Monday.
Some sourness lingers Trump and his wife launched meme coins, which critics said looked like an unseemly cash grab.
In other dealings early Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 16 cents to $75.28 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 13 cents to $78.87 per barrel.
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