BENGALURU (Oct 27): South Korean stocks gained on Tuesday after artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic filed for an initial public offering (IPO), while Indonesian assets came under pressure, with equities falling over 3% and the rupiah slipping towards the 18,190-per-dollar mark.
MSCI’s emerging Asia equities index rose over 1%, helped by gains in South Korea’s Kospi. Along with Taiwan’s benchmark index, South Korean shares account for more than half of the regional gauge.
Claude-owner Anthropic’s closely watched IPO filing lifted risk appetite ahead of earnings from major US technology companies.
The optimism drove the Kospi up as much as 4.9% earlier in the session before it ended 3.1% higher.
Indonesia’s benchmark stock index fell over 3% as investors continued to assess MSCI’s downgrade warning, which has dented investor confidence, with Reed Capital Partners’ chief investment officer Gerald Gan saying the selloff in Indonesian equities may not be over yet.
The rupiah traded near record lows at 18,155 per US dollar, remaining within sight of the all-time trough hit in early June.
Indonesia may need higher interest rates to retain foreign capital, with borrowing costs likely to rise further as elevated global yields and intense competition for investment, including from AI-related spending, put pressure on capital flows, Gan added.
Currency markets were largely subdued, with the Philippine peso sliding to a record low and crossing the 64 per USD mark.
The Thai baht was little changed, while stocks edged lower ahead of the Bank of Thailand’s policy decision on Wednesday, with markets widely expecting policymakers to leave interest rates unchanged and maintain that stance through 2027.
Elsewhere in emerging markets, Brazil’s real plunged 8.5% against the US dollar on Monday, its steepest one-day decline since 2002. The sell-off also battered equities, with the benchmark Bovespa index tumbling 10% and triggering a 30-minute trading halt.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s election to a fourth term unwound some of the optimism that had lifted Brazilian assets after rival Flavio Bolsonaro’s stronger-than-expected first-round showing.
In Taiwan, the central bank said robust demand for technology products would continue to support exports into next year, although economic growth is expected to moderate in 2027 following a strong expansion this year. The benchmark stock index rose 0.1%, while the Taiwan dollar added 0.2%.
Investors now await a raft of central bank decisions due this week, with markets widely expecting the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank to keep interest rates unchanged.
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