Stocks rebound on AI boost as Iran talks, Warsh hearing in focus

By Gregor Stuart Hunter

TOKYO, April 21 (Reuters) – Stocks rebounded on Tuesday as markets took heart from reports Iran is considering attending peace talks with the United States in Pakistan, with renewed bets on AI underpinning demand.

Investors were also keeping their eyes on a Senate confirmation hearing later for Kevin Warsh, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, which Trump has repeatedly criticised for failing to cut rates sooner and more aggressively.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 1.1%, as South Korea’s Kospi rose 2.7% to hit a fresh record high for the first time since the Iran war began. S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 0.2%, while Brent crude slipped 0.8% to $94.71 a barrel.

“We view AI as a supercharged mega force as buildout spending is rising from already-historic levels, supporting our overweight U.S. and EM stocks,” BlackRock Investment Institute wrote in a research report.

“U.S.-Iran talks to end the Middle East conflict have boosted stocks to new record highs,” they added. “Tech has helped drive the gains – and what’s becoming clearer is the building strength of the AI theme.”

BLOWOUT GAINS FOR AI STOCKS

South Korea’s Kospi hit a record high for the first time since U.S.-Israeli war with Iran erupted on February 28, while Taiwanese shares, tech investor Softbank and memory chipmaker SK Hynix set fresh all-time highs on optimism around AI, after Amazon said on Monday that it will invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic.

Shares in SK Hynix jumped 4.8%, lifting its market value to $564.6 billion and pushing it past drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, underscoring investors’ growing appetite for memory-chip makers riding the AI boom. It was closing in on ASML, a Dutch manufacturer of lithography devices at the heart of advanced chipmaking and Europe’s most valuable company.

Shares of Chinese circuit board maker Victory Giant Technology jumped 60% in their Hong Kong debut on Tuesday, after raising HK$20.1 billion ($2.6 billion) in the city’s biggest listing in more than half a year.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 tacked on 0.9%, while Australian shares bucked the trend, slipping 0.1%.

IRAN WAR NERVES

An uneasy ceasefire between the United States and Iran frayed after the U.S. announced the seizure of an Iranian cargo ship, drawing vows of retaliation from Tehran. Iran said over the weekend it would skip a second round of negotiations, though a senior official later told Reuters the country may yet send delegates to talks expected in Islamabad.

Adding to the uncertainty, Vice President JD Vance remained in the United States on Monday, a separate source told Reuters, denying reports he was already on his way to Pakistan for talks.

The renewed tensions had reignited a surge in oil prices overnight as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained largely paralysed. 

“While potential talks in Islamabad remain likely, rhetoric from Washington and Tehran continued to point to fragile and strained negotiations,” analysts from Westpac wrote in a research report.

Overnight, the S&P 500 was down 0.2% on worries over whether the U.S.-Iran ceasefire would hold, while the Nasdaq Composite snapped a 13-day winning streak, its longest in more than three decades. 

READY FOR WARSH

Warsh’s confirmation hearing before the Senate panel is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Tuesday, with his independence from the Trump White House expected to be a key focus. Warsh will say he is “committed to ensuring that the conduct of monetary policy remains strictly independent,” according to his prepared remarks, while economists say his attitudes towards the central bank’s quantitative easing program will also be critical.

“In the past, Warsh was a vocal critic of the Fed’s ‘bloated’ balance sheet, as he called it, and argued that it creates a distortionary impact on asset prices,” said Bansi Madhavani, senior economist at ANZ in London. “His preference for a smaller balance sheet is quite clear, but any guidance around what he thinks will be the optimal size, we think that will be relevant,” she said on a podcast.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, nudged up 0.1% to 98.139, firmly in the middle of the range it has sat in during the past week. 

The euro was fetching $1.1784 and sterling traded at $1.3535, each down 0.1% on the day. The risk-sensitive Australian dollar also eased 0.2% to $0.7164.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond was up 0.2 basis point at 4.25%.

Bets on so-called dollar debasement languished. Gold was 0.8% lower at $4,782.49 after a month of moving sideways. Cryptocurrencies fluctuated in the trading channel they have wallowed in since early February, with bitcoin down 0.7% at $75,794.99 and ether slipping 1.2% to $2,310.93.

(Reporting by Gregor Stuart HunterEditing by Shri Navaratnam)