World shares advance after Nvidia's rebound offsets weakness on Wall St

Shares advanced in Europe and Asia on Wednesday after a rebound for Nvidia offset weakness on Wall Street.

Germany's DAX surged 0.8% to 18,482.00 while the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.1% at 7,672.76. In London, the FTSE 100 gained 0.5% to 8,291.45.

The future for the S&P 500 picked up 0.2% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was barely changed.

In Asian trading, Japan's Nikkei jumped 1.3% to 39,667.07, buoyed by strong demand for technology shares driven by the enthusiasm over Nvidia and artificial intelligence.

Tokyo Electron gained 3.6% and Advantest Corp. soared 7%. Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. added 1.5%.

Meanwhile, the dollar inched higher against the Japanese yen, drawing warnings from senior officials in Tokyo of potential intervention in the market.

The dollar rose to 159.89 Japanese yen from 159.70 yen. The euro fell to $1.0695 from $1.0717.

"Fundamentally, the yen remains weak, lacking triggers for a reversal," Luca Santos, a currency analyst at ACY Securities, said in a commentary.

"The threat of direct intervention looms if USD/JPY crosses the 160.00 (yen) threshold," he said, noting that Japanese officials had stressed that the pace of the yen's decline, not just its level, could trigger intervention.

The Kospi in Seoul was up 0.6% at 2,792.05.

Chinese shares rebounded after a weak open. Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged 0.1% higher to 18,089.93 and the Shanghai Composite index surged 0.8% to 2,972.53.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.7% to 7,783.00.

Shares rose 05.% in Taiwan and 0.7% in India. Bangkok's SET edged 0.1% higher.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which does not include Nvidia, dropped 0.8%. The Nasdaq composite jumped 1.3%.

Most stocks outside Wall Street's frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology fell. Nvidia climbed 6.8%, and without that gain, the S&P 500 would have dropped to a loss for the day. The chip company's shares snapped a three-day losing streak where they had shed nearly 13% for their worst such stretch since 2022.

Nvidia has the power to swing the S&P 500 around because it's grown to become one of Wall Street's largest and most influential companies.

Voracious demand for its chips to power artificial-intelligence applications has been a big reason for the U.S. stock market's run to records recently, even as the economy's growth slows under the weight of high interest rates. But the AI boom has been so frenzied that it's raised worries about a possible bubble in the stock market and too-high expectations among investors.

Broadly, sales at retailers across the country have been up and down recently as companies highlight how lower-income customers are struggling to keep up with still-rising prices.

Investors are hoping that the Federal Reserve will soon begin cutting interest rates, which it has kept at their highest level in more than 20 years in hopes of grinding down on the economy just enough to get inflation under control. The hope on Wall Street is that the Fed will cut interest rates at the exact right time. If it waits too long, the economy's slowdown could careen into a recession. If it's too early, inflation could reaccelerate.

In other dealings early Wednesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up 57 cents to $81.40 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, was up 57 cents at $84.79 per barrel.