Asian shares were mixed at the open and Bitcoin held near a record achieved on Wednesday after Wall Street investors drove stocks higher in a sign investors are looking through the latest tariff headlines.

Equities in Australia and South Korea gained and those in Japan dipped. The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and the Nasdaq 100 climbed 0.7%, helped by tech gains that pushed Nvidia Corp. to become the first company in history to touch $4 trillion in market value. Brazilian assets plunged after President Donald Trump unveiled a new round of trade demand letters on Wednesday that included imposing 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods. 

Japanese government bonds were steady ahead of an auction of 20-year JGBs Thursday. The dollar edged lower in early Asian trading.

Investors have been piling back into US stocks after a choppy first half of 2025, with Trump announcing the highest tariffs in a century in April. The equity rally indicated traders were brushing off fears Trump’s latest push on reciprocal tariffs would lead to a meaningful slowdown for the global economy or company earnings.

“Most investors believe that the economy is strong, corporate profits will be resilient and are eager to buy stocks,” said Chris Zaccarelli at Northlight Asset Management. “We believe more caution is warranted because we haven’t yet seen the impact of tariffs on corporate profits and consumer spending,” he said.

On tariffs, Trump on Wednesday said he would levy a 30% rate on Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka, with 25% duties on products from Brunei and Moldova and a 20% rate on goods from the Philippines. The levies were largely in line with rates Trump had initially announced in April against those countries, though Iraq’s duties are down from 39% and Sri Lanka’s reduced from 44%.

Brazil’s 50% rate marked one of the highest levies announced so far, and are set to hit in August. Trump cited the treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro in his letter to the nation, calling on authorities to drop charges against him over an alleged coup attempt. Brazil will respond to the US using its reciprocity law, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said.

Elsewhere, an auction of 20-year Japanese government bonds Thursday will beam the searchlight back on rising yields as a looming election heightens concerns about fiscal expansion. Japanese telecom giant NTT Inc. received more than $100 billion of investor orders as it sold bonds to help refinance bridge loans used to increase its stake in the data-center unit being taken private.

Wednesday’s equity rally pushed the S&P 500 to within a few points of its record high. The CNN Fear & Greed Index is now signaling “extreme greed,” an indication of the market’s bullish momentum. A gauge of megacaps added 1.1%, with Nvidia extending this year’s surge to more than 20%. In another sign of risk appetite, Bitcoin topped $112,000 for the first time.

“We believe the setup for equity markets looks bullish, even in light of renewed trade-war jitters,” said Craig Johnson at Piper Sandler. “While equities may come under some near-term pressure, investors are increasingly becoming numb to the tariff headlines and instead focusing on the trendlines.”

Meanwhile, the emerging divide among Federal Reserve officials over the outlook for interest rates is being driven largely by differing expectations for how tariffs might affect inflation, a record of policymakers’ most recent meeting showed.

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

  • S&P 500 futures fell 0.1% as of 9:21 a.m. Tokyo time

  • Hang Seng futures were little changed

  • Japan’s Topix fell 0.5%

  • Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.5%

  • Euro Stoxx 50 futures rose 1.4%

Currencies

  • The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%

  • The euro rose 0.2% to $1.1743

  • The Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 146.02 per dollar

  • The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.1809 per dollar

Cryptocurrencies

  • Bitcoin rose 0.5% to $111,286.23

  • Ether rose 1.1% to $2,768.18

Bonds

  • The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.34%

  • Japan’s 10-year yield was unchanged at 1.500%

  • Australia’s 10-year yield declined six basis points to 4.28%

Commodities

  • West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.4% to $68.09 a barrel

  • Spot gold rose 0.1% to $3,318.17 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

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