Asian stocks rose sharply on Friday as investors chased chip and AI firms and brushed off concern over stalled energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, even as tit-for-tat attacks escalated between the U.S. and Iran. The market’s message was blunt. Profit first, human fallout later.
Who Gets Left Holding the Risk
Brent crude futures were set for a 5% week-on-week rise, the strongest weekly performance since early May, but at $76.03 per barrel Brent had given up most of the gains it picked up when the conflict began at the end of February. That’s the kind of number traders love to watch from a safe distance while the rest of the world absorbs the shock. The Strait of Hormuz sits in the background like a pressure point, and investors are acting as if the fuse won’t reach the powder.
Nick Twidale, chief market strategist at ATFX Global in Sydney, said, "I'm looking at updates from the Middle East and things don't look good, but investors seem incredibly resilient to those risks at the moment, with tech again driving markets higher." He also said, "We will start on the front foot again in Asia, but I'm still very cautious that we are not pricing in enough event risk that the Strait of Hormuz may be closed again in the coming days." His warning lands harder than the market’s cheer. The apparatus keeps trading while the threat of another closure hangs over energy supplies.
Japan's Nikkei rose 1.8% and South Korea's KOSPI gained 4%, with chip bellwethers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics up 1% and 3%, respectively. Taiwan markets were closed because of a typhoon. That left the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan 1.3% higher. The gains flowed to the firms already sitting closest to the AI boom, while the wider risks stayed parked offstage.
The Money Moves Upward
Japan's bond market and currency lurched higher after Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said on Friday the government wants to explore ways to encourage pension funds, including the Government Pension Investment Fund, to increase their holdings of domestic financial assets. The yen got a lift from Katayama's comments and was last 0.5% firmer at 161.51 per U.S. dollar. Pension funds, including the Government Pension Investment Fund, are being nudged into the state’s preferred channels. The language is polite. The direction is not.
Overnight, the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended sharply higher after Micron Technology's plans to invest more than $250 billion in the U.S. through 2035 buoyed chip stocks, with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index rising 3%. Attention was also on SK Hynix's U.S. market debut later on Friday after the firm priced its American Depositary Receipts at $149 on Thursday, raising about $26.5 billion. The offering will finance new factories and equipment to meet surging AI chip demand and is set to be the world's second-biggest share sale after SpaceX's record-breaking IPO last month.
That’s the machine in motion: huge capital raises, new factories, more equipment, and a market that treats all of it as a clean story of growth. The people at the bottom don’t get to vote on whether the demand for AI chips should outrank the risk of energy disruption. They just live with the consequences.
What the Market Calls Confidence
Sam Konrad, investment manager for Asia Equity Income at Jupiter Asset Management, said the listing could mean the SK Hynix ADR trades at a premium to the local shares, but it could still help re-rate the South Korean-listed shares. He said, "If SK Hynix re-rates, that should help support a re-rating in Samsung Electronics too, especially when they release details of their shareholder return plans." Konrad said he holds shares in both South Korean firms. The quote says plenty on its own. Shareholder return plans, premiums, re-ratings — the vocabulary of a system built to reward ownership while everyone else watches the numbers.
SK Hynix's South Korean shares have surged 238% this year, taking the broader benchmark to record highs and making the KOSPI the world's best-performing major stock market since the start of 2025. The AI mania has also spurred sharp swings in recent weeks as investors fret about sky-high valuations and worry about the sustainability of their massive profit growth. The same market that shrugs at war risk also panics over whether profits can keep climbing fast enough.
In currency markets, the dollar was mostly muted as investors awaited catalysts to gauge the path of U.S. interest rates. Traders are pricing in 34 basis points of hikes for the year, though that may change depending on the inflation pressure from the war. Gold looked set to post a 1% decline for the week and was last at $4,113 per ounce in early trading. Even the so-called safe havens get dragged around by the same logic: speculation first, everything else second.