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StreetAccount Summary - Asian Market Recap: Nikkei +0.84%, Hang Seng +0.15%, Shanghai Composite +0.67% as of 04:10 ET

May 13 ,2026

  • Synopsis:

    • Asia stocks ended mostly higher Wednesday. South Korea's Kospi recovered from Tuesday's losses as Samsung Electronics also reversed early losses to end higher. Japan's Topix and Nikkei benchmarks rallied well while Greater China main boards ended higher. India set to break a four-day losing streak, Southeast Asia mixed. Australia ended lower again, Taiwan's Taiex saw a sharp decline to edge away from its record high. US futures higher, Europe up in the opening hour. US dollar a little higher in afternoon trade, Asia currencies largely unchanged. Treasury yields higher, JGB yields also up as the 20Y yield rose to its highest since 1997. Crude futures lower but both WTI and Brent still above $100/bl. Precious metals higher, base metals rallied.

    • Asia equities in a mixed trading day as South Korea's Kospi ended higher but Taiwan's Taiex fell in a rare day of polarized trading in the tech-dominated benchmarks. Both benchmarks weighed by an overnight correction in the SOX index but while the Kospi saw retail investors stepping in mid-morning, Taipei was weighed by reports President Trump may consider diluting an arms sale to Taiwan during his talks with President Xi tomorrow. Other topics on Xi and Trump's agenda will include an extension to the critical minerals deal and broader trade truce, and potentially deals on agriculture and the sale of Boeing aircraft. The additions of Nvidia's Jensen Huang to the list of CEOs accompanying Trump also raised some eyebrows, leading to a surge in several China-based AI stocks.

    • Few regional catalysts today away from individual corporate stories with news from the Persian Gulf also quiet. India's markets bouncing back amid a pullback in IGB yields and a modest rupee rally after the government substantially raised tariffs on gold and silver imports to ease pressure on forex; the measures came after inflation data posted late Tuesday showed a marginal increase in CPI albeit with warnings from economists that the worst was yet to come. The Bank of Thailand warned against significant consumer stimulus saying it would restrict fiscal room and not have an impact on inflation. Australia's Q1 wage growth eased slightly to 3.3%; New Zealand's inflation outlook rose to its highest level since Q4-23.

    • EQT AB is to make a tender offer for Kakaku.com (2371.JP) from 13-May to 2-Jul at ¥3,000/share, trumping the offer from Bain Capital and LY Corp. Nidec (6594.JP) said it had identified more cases of improper conduct involving the quality control of motors and other products; shares down sharply. Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) said it had failed to reach an agreement over wages with its largest labour union, increasing the risk of a strike at the company. Commonwealth Bank (BBA.AU) Q3 results weighed by higher loan impairments and cost pressures.

  • Digest:

    • Nidec tumbles on report of improper conduct:

      • Nidec (6594.JP) fell as much as its daily limit Wednesday in the wake of a Nikkei report overnight exposing the company suspected of having engaged in quality tampering involving more than 1,000 cases, extending a series of compliance issues that were previously centered on accounting irregularities. The company will set up an investigative committee led by external lawyers as early as Wednesday, in a bid to uncover the root cause of the problem by the end of August. Quality issues came to light during an internal probe into the accounting irregularities. Article cited company officials alleging that founder Shigenobu Nagamori, who remained on the board until December and is still a major shareholder, placed employees and executives under intense pressure to meet profit and sales targets. Suspected tampering involved motors used in household appliances and automotive components. Almost all cases involved changes to molds, manufacturing processes or designs without customer approval. Nidec responded in a statement acknowledging the quality inspection conducted last year revealed suspicions of inappropriate conduct, such as changes to materials, processes and designs made without customer confirmation, though this has not led to any incidents affecting product functionality or safety.

    • No breakthrough in Samsung's wage talks with labor unions, raising risk of strike:

      • Samsung Electronics' (005930.KS) wage dispute with labor unions getting more attention after talks failed to produce agreement on Wednesday (Bloomberg). Core dispute relates to percentage of operating profit given back to workers with unions wanting 15% allocated to bonuses and Samsung offering 10%. Unions have threatened to strike from 21-May if no agreement is reached.

      • Whether strike proceeds may hinge on Samsung's application to court for injunction to prevent industrial action. Government could also wield emergency mediation powers, prohibiting strike action for 30 days (Yonhap). Concern is that a strike will disrupt production, which may reverberate through semiconductor supply chain given several weeks' lag before operations can resume once they are suspended. Some estimates that an 18-day strike could result in losses north of KRW40T ($26.8B).

      • South Korea's memory giants have drawn more scrutiny lately after presidential policy adviser Kim proposed citizen dividend funded by AI profit tax, drawing attention to public calls for greater sharing of windfalls from the AI boom. President Lee on Wednesday pushed back against media reporting of Kim's remarks, saying they were mischaracterized. Lee explained Kim was talking about plan to distribute national excess tax revenue generated from excess AI profits as a citizen's dividend, and not distributing corporate excess profits as a dividend.

    • Alibaba and Tencent miss out tech rally as their AI bets under scrutiny:

      • Ahead of their earnings, FT and Bloomberg discussed how Alibaba (9988.HK) and Tencent (700.HK) underperformed US peers and missed out stock rally for other Chinese companies connected to AI. Recall Alibaba down more than 8% YTD while Tencent slumped nearly 24%, compared with Alphabet's (GOOGL) 24% gain and Amazon's (AMNZ) 15% rise this year on signs their AI capex is boosting cloud growth and revenues. Within Greater China, CSI artificial intelligence index has also soared 28% this year. Markets getting more concerned about earning compression of the duo amid rising AI investment costs and more intense local competition, which more investors demand "show me the profits" moment as they no longer reward just AI ambition. Divergence in share performances among China tech companies also reflecting markets favoring hardware makers and infrastructure suppliers as immediate AI beneficiaries, while consumer-facing Alibaba and Tencent face more uncertain monetization cycles. Added Beijing's push for self-sufficiency in semiconductors benefiting domestic chip designers/makers, while global demand has added legs to rallies in Chinese manufacturers in optics components. Even for LLMs, markets tilting toward China's pure AI plays, including MiniMax (100.HK) and Zhipu (2513.HK), while increasingly seeing China's big tech as laggards.

    • Bank of Thailand says economy faces heightened risks but urges against stimulus:

      • Bank of Thailand's monetary policy committee has warned against broad consumer stimulus, saying move could constrain fiscal flexibility (BangkokPost). BoT's MPC said during meeting last month consumption stimulus would give only transient support, said economy needed coordinated policy mix that included structural transformation, which would preserve fiscal space during period of heightened global uncertainty (Bloomberg). Minutes also showed impact of Iran conflict had gone beyond higher energy prices, had weakened purchasing power, cost businesses more. Warnings came just after Thailand PM Anutin asked to borrow Baht400B ($12B) to fund cash handout and assistance to sectors impacted by energy shock, although measure could yet face legal challenge. BoT said package could add 0.6ppt to GDP growth this year but lower growth 0.4ppt next due to high base effect, while only offering limited impact on inflation amid weak demand.

    • Economists warn India's subdued inflation masks risks ahead:

      • India's April inflation rose only marginally from March's print and less than consensus expectations despite fuel cost increases however several economists warned bigger inflationary risks lie ahead that could be enough to trigger RBI rate hike (Reuters). Headline CPI was 3.48% versus FactSet consensus 3.8%, March's 3.4%, mainly on higher food prices, which rose 4.2% from March 3.9%; energy inflation below median, transport costs stagnant as country yet to pass on retail fuel prices leaving refiners, oil retailers to absorb cost burdens.

      • But economists warned worse was ahead; Goldman Sachs said immediate pressure on RBI may have eased; bank will watch for pass-through costs that may appear by Q4, when it expects rates to rise. Other economists warned higher prices could come sooner if monsoon prove weak, government allows oil price increase to pass through to broader economy (CNBC-TV18).

      • Rising energy costs threaten to widen current account deficit, pressure rupee further, which could then add more inflationary costs, they said. Separately Tuesday, New Delhi raised tariffs on imported gold and silver to curb imports, support rupee (Reuters). Follows comments from PM Modi suggesting citizens refrain from buying gold, curb overseas travel, work from home to ease pressure on forex reserves.

    • Notable Gainers:

      • +17.1% 2371.JP (Kakaku.com): EQT AB to make tender offer for all of Kakaku.com from 13-May to 2-Jul at ¥3,000/share

      • +15.3% 5801.JP (Furukawa Electric Co.): to be added to MSCI Japan Index; follow-though FY results

      • +9.8% 6479.JP (Minebea Mitsumi): reports Q4 results; to acquire automotive motor and automotive cooling fan motor business operated by Panasonic Industry

      • +8.3% 9618.HK (JD.com): reports Q1 Non-GAAP EPADS CNY5.12 vs FactSet CNY3.64

      • +7.1% 2618.HK (JD Logistics): reports Q1 adjusted net income CNY1.05B vs StreetAccount CNY1.01B; launches up to $1.2B (HK$9.40B) on-market share buyback

      • +6.6% 8058.JP (Mitsubishi): Berkshire Hathaway's unit National Indemnity Company raises stake to 11.1% from 9.7%

      • +2.6% 7389.JP (Aichi Financial Group): Aichi Financial, San ju San Financial say they have made decisions on basic agreement for business integration

    • Notable Decliners:

      • -14.8% 192820.KS (COSMAX): reports Q4 results; operating profit misses FactSet estimates

      • -13.9% 6594.JP (Nidec): responds to media report regarding quality matters; notes no immediate impact on product functionality or safety

      • -4.7% 300347.CH (Hangzhou Tigermed Consulting): CSRC launches investigation into controlling shareholders Ye Xiaoping, Cao Xiaochun

      • -3.8% 6752.JP (Panasonic): reports Q4 results; outlines group growth strategy; guides FY29 adjusted operating profit ¥750B or more; Panasonic Industry to sell automotive motor and automotive cooling fan motor businesses

  • Data:

    • Economic:

      • Japan

        • March current account balance ¥4,681.5B vs consensus ¥3,896.1B and ¥3,932.7B in prior month

        • April bank lending +5.4% y/y vs +4.8% in prior month

      • Australia Q1

        • Wage price index +0.8% q/q vs consensus +0.8% and +0.8% in Q4

          • Wage price index +3.3% y/y vs consensus +3.3 and +3.4% in Q4

        • Housing finance (6.2%) q/q vs +5.1% in Q4

      • South Korea April

        • Unemployment Rate 2.8% versus consensus 2.7% and 2.7% in prior month

      • New Zealand Q2

        • Inflation expectations +2.5% versus +2.4% in prior quarter

    • Markets:

      • Nikkei: 529.54 or +0.84% to 63272.11

      • Hang Seng: 40.53 or +0.15% to 26388.44

      • Shanghai Composite: 28.08 or +0.67% to 4242.57

      • Shenzhen Composite: 45.10 or +1.55% to 2949.07

      • ASX200: (40.30) or (0.46%) to 8630.40

      • KOSPI: 200.86 or +2.63% to 7844.01

      • SENSEX: 357.77 or +0.48% to 74917.01

    • Currencies:

      • $-¥: +0.16 or +0.10% to 157.7720

      • $-KRW: (4.20) or (0.28%) to 1489.2500

      • A$-$: (0.00) or (0.06%) to 0.7236

      • $-INR: +0.07 or +0.07% to 95.6923

      • $-CNY: (0.00) or (0.04%) to 6.7894

This information and data is provided for general informational purposes only. The Bank of New York Mellon and our information suppliers do not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of this information or data. We provide no advice nor recommendation or endorsement with respect to any company or securities. We do not undertake any obligation to update or amend this information or data. Nothing herein shall be deemed to constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities.
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