ASIAN STOCKS RALLY AS GLOBAL INVESTORS DIVERSIFY

RECAP: Asian stocks rose yesterday as non-US assets found favour with global investors concerned about more policy unpredictability from Donald Trump, even after he dropped his latest tariff threats and softened his position on Greenland.

- NUNTAWUN POLKUAMDEE NAREERAT WIRIYAPONG

The Thai index finally pushed above 1,300 points, with foreign fund inflows expected to continue as the country moves towards the Feb 8 general election.

The SET index moved in a range of 1,271.80 and 1,327.91 points this week, before closing yesterday at 1,314.39, up 3% from the previous week, with sizeable daily turnover averaging 54.16 billion baht.

Brokerage firms were net buyers of 7.03 billion baht, followed by foreign investors at 2.47 billion and retail investors at 1.39 billion. Institutional investors were net sellers of 10.89 billion.

NEWSMAKERS: President Trump said he and NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte had “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” as he backed away from his plan to acquire the island. He also called off threatened tariffs on eight European countries that he saw as opposing his Greenland ambitions.

Despite the conciliatory tone from Trump, the European Parliament has postponed ratification of a trade deal with the US, citing a need to see a more cooperative attitude from Washington.

Trump is expected to announce a successor to Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell in the next week or two. The shortlist is said to include BlackRock executive Rick Rieder, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, current Fed governor Christopher Waller and a former governor, Kevin Warsh.

The social media platform TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance have closed a long-awaited deal to transfer parts of their US operations to American investors led by the software giant Oracle, securing the video app’s future in the US and avoiding a ban.

The infrastructure to develop and power generative AI models will require further “trillions” of dollars in investment, Jensen Huang, the head of the chipmaker Nvidia, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.