Analysis
Asian tech stocks rallied sharply this week, tracking a record-setting session on Wall Street driven by renewed optimism around the AI trade. SoftBank Group led the move, surging 13.96% on strong quarterly results and optimistic projections for its AI and cloud businesses. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 3.66% and South Korea's KOSPI gained 3.76%, with semiconductor names SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics providing much of the lift on the Korean side.
The rally's origin was domestic to the US: the S&P 500 touched a fresh all-time intraday high this week, its first record in two months, as investors digested a batch of strong corporate earnings and grew more confident that AI capex spending -- despite the capex-driven pullbacks in names like AMD and SpaceX this same week -- still supports the broader growth story once the initial reaction settles.
“Up roughly 73% year-to-date, SoftBank's swings have increasingly tracked broader AI-sector sentiment more tightly than its own standalone operating results.”
SoftBank specifically has become one of the cleanest single-stock proxies for global AI-trade sentiment, given how much of its balance sheet is now tied to AI investments across its portfolio, including its large historical Arm stake and various venture positions. Up roughly 73% year-to-date, SoftBank's swings have increasingly tracked broader AI-sector sentiment more tightly than its own standalone operating results.
The semiconductor-led nature of the Korean rally (SK Hynix, Samsung) reinforces that memory and chip supply -- not just model capability -- remains the market's preferred proxy for AI infrastructure demand, echoing the HBM-shortage dynamics that have driven memory-chip valuations all year.
What to watch: whether this rally holds through the next round of Big Tech capex disclosures, given how quickly AMD and SpaceX's own beats turned into sell-offs this same week once investors focused on spending rather than growth -- the same scrutiny could eventually catch up to SoftBank's AI-heavy balance sheet.
