Emerging market equities advanced at the start of the week, with optimism surrounding a new AI model lifting technology heavyweights and countering the dampening effect of higher oil prices on sentiment.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed as much as 1.4%, reaching its strongest level since June 26. South Korea's benchmark Kospi index surged more than 3%, while an index of emerging market currencies edged up 0.1%, extending a run that has seen gains in 12 of the past 13 trading sessions.
Technology emerged as the top-performing sector within the emerging market stock gauge, tracking a rally in U.S. chip stocks from the previous session. OpenAI unveiled its next-generation model, GPT-6, which the company positioned as a pivotal step in its decade-long push toward artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Most other sectors traded lower as tit-for-tat attacks on oil tankers between Iran and the United States pushed crude prices higher, and robust U.S. jobs data intensified speculation that the Federal Reserve could soon move to tighten policy.
Wee Khoon Chong, senior market strategist for Asia-Pacific at BNY in Hong Kong, noted that the strong performance in tech shares helped offset the "drag" from rising crude prices, adding that Friday's surge in the technology sector had lifted regional sentiment, with equity benchmarks in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan all finishing higher.
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