Asia stocks rise as Australia leads gains

August 21, 2025 (MLN): Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose on Thursday, with Australian stocks among the top gainers, breaking ranks with key Wall Street peers that saw declines led by tech stocks.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 benchmark rose nearly 1% to cross the 9,000 threshold for the first time at 12:39 p.m. local time.

Gains were seen in the consumer discretionary, financial and real estate sectors, led by Super Retail Group, which was up 13.9%, while Vault Minerals and technology firm Codan rose 13.1% and 12.97% respectively.

Investors in the region are awaiting India’s HSBC Composite flash purchasing managers’ index reading for August, which provides an early snapshot of the performance of the private sector economy, expected later in the day.

Economists polled by Reuters expect it to come in at 60.5, compared with 61.1 in the month before, as CNBC reported.

Indian markets rose in early trade with the benchmark Nifty 50 trading 0.14% higher, while the BSE Sensex index was up 0.15%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.57%, with losses led by Daiichi Sankyo, SoftBank Group and Denso Corp. Strong gains, however, were seen in Mitsui Mining and Smelting, which rose 10.68%, and Advantest, which pared earlier gains to 1.5%.

The broader Topix index ticked down 0.57%. Yields on Japan’s 20-year government bonds rose to 2.646%, after hitting a 26-year high earlier in the session.

In South Korea, the Kospi index rose 1.12%, while the small-cap Kosdaq increased by 0.74%.

Mainland China’s CSI 300 increased by 0.84%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was flat.

Shares of tech major fell as much as 5% after its total revenue of 32.71 billion yuan ($4.56bn) during the three months ended June 30 fell 3.7% from the same period a year earlier.

Analysts on average had estimated quarterly revenue at 32.76 billion yuan, according to data compiled by LSEG.

U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asia hours.

Overnight stateside, two of the three key benchmarks ended the session in declines as tech stocks dragged the market lower.

The broad market S&P 500 index slipped 0.24% to close at 6,395.78, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.67% and settled at 21,172.86.

Wednesday marked a fourth day of losses for the S&P 500 and a second negative session for the Nasdaq.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the outlier, adding 16.04 points, or 0.04%, and settling at 44,938.31.

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