San Francisco Frontiers - Asian stocks rally as tech firms enjoy bounce ahead of key earnings

Seoul and Tokyo were the headliners again as chipmakers and other key players in the AI buildout boom chalked up healthy gains, following a torrid few weeks fuelled by concerns about profitability and debt financing.

South Korea's SK hynix and Samsung both surged at least seven percent, while Kioxia, Advantest and SoftBank spiked between two and four percent in Japan -- having all been pummelled since the start of last week.

The gains came after Elon Musk's SpaceX reported its first quarterly profit as a public company, as deals to rent out computing power to AI firms sent revenue at its artificial intelligence unit soaring.

The firm's $4.4 billion net profit for July-September was more than double what was expected and compared with a loss of $1.1 billion a year earlier. Revenue at the firm -- which listed after a world-record IPO in June -- jumped 161 percent to $14.6 billion.

Meanwhile, world's richest man Musk said he would back a merger of SpaceX and Tesla, adding that the combination would be "a good idea". Such a tie-up would be the biggest of all time.

Server-maker Super Micro Computer also provided a fillip to buying sentiment as it said preliminary quarterly earnings had come in better than forecast.

The developments soothed worries on trading floors about the outlook for the AI boom, which has seen companies pump hundreds of billions into R&D, software building data centres and other hardware in recent years.

It also bodes well ahead of reports from Magnificent Seven members Tesla and Meta later in the day.

"Clear earnings beats and constructive corporate updates are helping to ease some of the AI anxiety that has surfaced in recent sessions," Tim Waterer of KCM Trade said.

"If (Meta and Tesla's) reports deliver similarly strong results and guidance, it could go some way toward reigniting broader AI enthusiasm and giving the sector more sustained momentum."

Seoul's Kospi jumped more than four percent, with infrastructure firm Elice soaring around 30 percent, almost wiping out the colossal losses suffered on its trading debut Tuesday.

Tokyo added more than one percent, while Hong Kong, Singapore, Wellington, Manila and Jakarta were also up.

There were losses in Sydney, where data centre developer NEXTDC tanked more than 40 percent after slashing its outlook and renewing its capital expenditure programme.

The broad gains followed a healthy day on Wall Street, though analysts said a lot of the gains were spurred by traders rotating into industrial firms and away from the once-all-powerful tech sector. The Dow ended up one percent and the Nasdaq was marginally lower.

Oil prices jumped more than one percent on supply concerns as the UKMTO maritime agency said on Wednesday that a tanker sailing off the north coast of Qatar had reported being struck "by multiple projectiles", causing an unspecified number of casualties.

The British agency did not specify the origin of the ship.

The reported attack was around 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the Strait of Hormuz, where ships have come under repeated attack since the United States and Israel sparked the Middle East war in late February. Iran has blockaded the strait ever since and fired on vessels it accuses of unauthorised crossings.

Both main crude contracts had fallen Tuesday after Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari described US-Iran talks as "ongoing".

Chinese battery giant CATL dived 10 percent in Hong Kong after its profit growth for July-September fell short of estimates.

- Key figures at around 0230 GMT -

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.2 percent at 64,823.55 (break)

Seoul - Kospi: UP 4.4 percent at 5,799.33

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.3 percent at 23,930.98

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,738.38

West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.3 percent at $99.12 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: UP 1.4 percent at $110.25 per barrel

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1230 from $1.1235 on Tuesday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3375 from $1.3378

Dollar/yen: UP at 158.25 yen from 158.23 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 83.95 pence from 83.98 pence

New York - Dow: UP 1.0 percent at 52,495.88 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.3 percent at 10,733.00 (close)

I.Rodriguez--SFF