Artificial intelligence stocks powered a broad market rally on Tuesday and Wednesday, lifting Wall Street and sending South Korea's Kospi index past 6,000. The gains helped calm investor fears that the AI spending boom is running out of steam, after a choppy run for technology shares in recent weeks.

Wall Street led by chips

On Wall Street on Tuesday, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.2% to 26,477.60, the S&P 500 climbed 0.6% to 7,722.60, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was virtually flat at 52,377.57. Chipmakers led the advance after Broadcom disclosed that a group of banks would provide $63 billion in financing for the purchase of its chips and networking products, which would be leased to Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI platform. Broadcom gained 4%, Advanced Micro Devices climbed 5.5% and Micron Technology rose 2.8%. Lower oil prices on Tuesday, as diplomatic efforts to ease Middle East tensions continued, also supported equities.

Asia surges, Europe lags

In Asia on Wednesday, South Korea's Kospi surged about 6.8% to close at 6,023.73, with memory chipmaker SK Hynix jumping 11.4% and Samsung Electronics surging 9.1% ahead of its earnings on Thursday. Japan's Nikkei 225 rallied 1.1% to 63,954.19, Taiwan's Taiex advanced 2%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.3% to 23,104.91, Shanghai rose 0.9% to 3,681.47 and Australia's ASX 200 added 0.3% to 8,847.30. Early European trading was more cautious: Germany's DAX shed 0.2% to 25,539.36, France's CAC 40 slipped 0.1% to 7,882.52 and Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.4% to 10,645.50. US futures edged higher, with Nasdaq futures up about 0.4%. Investors now turn to earnings from Microsoft and Alphabet after the US close for the next test of whether huge AI investments are turning into revenue.

Sources: The Hindu BusinessLine (AP) and Mettis Global.