Nikkei hits 34-year high, Singapore Budget

Shares of Coinbase Global rose more than 14% in after-hours trading after the cryptocurrency exchange reported its first quarterly earnings since 2021 on Thursday, helped by increased trading volumes.

Coinbase CFO Alicia Haas attributed the strong earnings to recent enthusiasm in the cryptocurrency market following the approval of bitcoin ETFs in the US last month.

“We're proud now to be 90% of the ETF's total crypto, and that has directly benefited our platform, but what I would say is that we've seen growth overall across the space with this [bitcoin ETF] Excitement,” she said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime.”

Bitcoin's price rose more than 50% in the last three months of last year, while Coinbase's transaction volume jumped 64% to $529.3 million during the same period.

Coinbase's momentum “remains strong” heading into the first quarter, Owen Lau, CEO and chief analyst at Oppenheimer, said on CNBC's “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday.

“We still have a lot of uncertainty regulatory-wise, but we are moving in the right direction,” he said. “We expect very sustainable profitability in the next few quarters.”

-Dylan Potts

Chinese markets expert Yan Wang said on Friday that Beijing needs to show “clearer signals” to strongly facilitate its policies to support declining growth.

“Otherwise, I doubt the market can go up on a sustainable basis,” Wang, chief emerging markets expert and China strategist at global investment research and strategy firm Alpine Macro, said on CNBC's “Street Signs Asia.”

Investment banks expect the Chinese economy to expand more slowly in 2024 than in 2023 – even last year the Chinese economy saw a slower-than-expected recovery after emerging from Covid-19 restrictions.

“The government has refused to issue very strong stimulus to help the economy and on a structural level, Beijing's flip-flopping policy over the past few years has damaged confidence,” Wang said.

Chinese markets are closed this week for the Chinese New Year holiday.

– Sheila Chiang

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports rose 16.8% in January from a year earlier, moving away from a low base in a year, official data showed.

The reading comes after a 1.5% decline in December. Electronics and non-electronic exports witnessed growth, according to a statement Released by Enterprise SG.

“Nodex [non-oil domestic exports] It grew into major markets as a whole in January 2024, mainly due to China, the United States and Hong Kong; Despite NODX being rejected to the EU27, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand.”

On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, Singapore's NODX rose 2.3%, non-electronic products grew while electronics exports declined.

-Li Ying Shan

The Nikkei 225 is set to hit all-time highs as it trades above 38,600 and rises to its highest levels in 34 years.

A new high for the Nikkei is “imminent,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a February 15 research note, maintaining its bullish stance on Japanese stocks.

“The Nikkei has traded above 38,000 and now looks likely in the near term to break the all-time high of 38,916 set long ago in December 1989,” economists at Morgan Stanley wrote.

The index is currently trading at an increase of 1.37%.

-Li Ying Shan

Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Friday that it is up to the Bank of Japan to decide when to end its negative interest rate policy, according to a Reuters report.

Japan's economy lost its position as the world's third-largest economy to Germany, slid into a technical recession, and raised hopes that the central bank may continue its ultra-loose monetary policy for longer.

“I realize there are different opinions in the market,” Suzuki reportedly said when asked if weak GDP data might affect the timing of the central bank's policy changes.

– Li Ying Shan, Reuters

All three major stock indexes ended the day higher, with the S&P 500 hitting a new record high.

The broad market index rose by 0.58% to close at 5,029.73 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 348.85 points, or 0.91%, to 38,773.12 points. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.30% to close at 15,906.17.

-Lisa Kailai Han

The S&P 500 closed above 5,000 for the first time last week. But as the index rose, so did concerns about its valuation.

However, investors need not fear, as there is still plenty of room for the rally to continue, according to Capital Economics.

The research firm's chief market economist revealed the target price in a note to clients titled: “The bubble may be far from bursting.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

-Ganesh Rao

Oil prices rose on Thursday on the strength of the dollar, after recovering from earlier losses caused by weak expectations for demand in 2024.

The West Texas Intermediate crude contract for March rose $1.46, or 1.91%, to $78.10 per barrel. The April Brent contract was trading at $82.83 per barrel, adding $1.23, or 1.51% per barrel.

Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group, said that oil prices are finding support from the weakness of the dollar after US retail sales fell more than expected in January.

Futures fell about 1% earlier in the trading session after the Paris-based International Energy Agency forecast demand would grow by 1.2 million barrels per day this year, down about 50% from growth of 2.3 million barrels per day in 2023.

-Spencer Kimball

Many US companies have caught the attention of investors amid the AI ​​boom, but there are “underappreciated beneficiaries” in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Morgan Stanley.

Japan stands out, she said, with 53% of companies seen as benefiting from AI – roughly equivalent to 54% in the US, higher than the 50% in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan at 39%.

Here are some of the names in Morgan Stanley's screens for AI beneficiaries — enablers, adopters, and those who have both — who it says have the “greatest potential to outperform over the next 12 months.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

-Weezin Tan