Global Stock Markets Rise as Investors Keep Betting on the AI Boom
Global stock markets climbed as investors continued to bet on the technology companies at the centre of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, Al Jazeera reported. The gains began on Wall Street on Tuesday, October 27, and carried into Asia on Wednesday, October 28.
In the United States, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.18 percent on Tuesday. The benchmark S&P 500, which tracks large American companies, rose 0.6 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.03 percent.
Most of the largest technology firms moved higher. Five of the so-called Magnificent Seven, a group of big US technology companies often discussed together, rose on Tuesday, led by Tesla, which climbed 4.04 percent. Amazon gained 1.61 percent, Apple 0.93 percent and Alphabet 0.9 percent. Meta fell 1.64 percent and Microsoft slipped 0.24 percent.
Chipmakers were among the strongest performers. Advanced Micro Devices rose 5.45 percent, Broadcom gained 4 percent and Intel 3.61 percent. Nvidia rose almost 1 percent after announcing a $3bn investment in Meta's equity offering, a sale of company shares to raise money.
The rise spread across Asia. Stock markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia climbed on Wednesday. South Korea's KOSPI index was up 5.84 percent as of 03:00 GMT, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.26 percent, Taiwan's TAIEX gained 1.32 percent and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.11 percent.
Much of the South Korean move followed results from SK Hynix, the country's chipmaker. The company reported third-quarter operating profit, meaning profit from its core business before certain costs, up about 630 percent on a year earlier, to 83.33 trillion won ($62.8bn). Its shares surged more than 8 percent after the announcement.
Attention now turns to the big technology companies' own reports. Microsoft and Alphabet were scheduled to report results on Wednesday, Amazon on Thursday and Apple on Monday.
Anthropic, an AI company, filed paperwork on Monday for an initial public offering, the first sale of its shares to the public. The filing reported a net loss of $80.7bn in the first half of 2026 on $16.3bn in revenue. A net loss means costs exceeded revenue after all expenses were counted.
Research firm Gartner forecasts global AI investment will reach $2.7 trillion in 2026 and $3.6 trillion in 2027.
Energy prices remain high. Brent crude, the main international oil benchmark, stood at about $115 a barrel on Wednesday, up 59 percent from before the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.
