Nikkei hits new 34-year high on Singapore budget

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

Coinbase's CFO, Alesia Haas, attributed the strong earnings to recent excitement in the crypto market following the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in the US last month.

“We're now the proud custodian of 90% of the total ETF crypto, and that's really directly benefited our platform, but what I'm saying is that we've seen massive growth across the space. [bitcoin ETF] Excitement,” he told CNBC's “Closing Bell Overtime.”

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

Coinbase's momentum “continues to be strong” in the first quarter, Owen Lau, managing director and senior analyst at Oppenheimer, said Friday on CNBC's “Squawk Box Asia.”

“We still have a lot of uncertainty from a regulatory standpoint, but we're moving in the right direction,” he said. “We're forecasting pretty steady profitability over the next few quarters.”

– Dylan Butts

China market expert Yan Wang said on Friday that Beijing needs to show “more clear signals” to ease aggressive policy to prevent a growth slowdown.

“Other than that, I suspect the market will rally on a sustained basis,” Wang, head of emerging markets and China strategist at global investment research and strategy firm Alpine Macro, told CNBC's “Street Science Asia.”

Investment banks expect China's economy to expand at a much slower pace in 2024 than in 2023 — even as the Chinese economy recovered more slowly than expected last year after exiting Covid-19 restrictions.

“The government has refused to provide very strong stimulus to help the economy and structurally, Beijing's failed policy reversals over the past few years have 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, coming off a one-year low base, official data showed.

The reading comes after a 1.5% decline in December. Both electronics and non-electronics exports have grown, a report said Published by Enterprise SG.

“NODX [non-oil domestic exports] By January 2024, China had grown to the top markets overall due to the US and Hong Kong; While the EU 27 has NODX, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand have been rejected,” it said.

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

– Lee Ying Shan

The Nikkei 225 is poised to hit an all-time high as it trades above 38,600 points and hits a 34-year high.

A new all-time high for the Nikkei is “imminent,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a research note dated February 15, maintaining their bullish stance on Japan stocks.

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

The index is currently trading 1.37% higher.

– Lee Ying Shan

Japan's Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Friday that the Bank of Japan will have to decide when to end its negative interest rate policy, according to a Reuters report.

Japan's economy has lost the world's third-largest spot to Germany, slipped into a technical recession, and fueled hopes that the central bank could stick with its ultra-loose monetary policy for much longer.

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

– Lee Ying Shan, Reuters

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

The broader market index rose 0.58% to end at 5,029.73. The Dow Jones industrial average added 348.85 points, or 0.91%, to end at 38,773.12. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.30% to close at 15,906.17.

– Lisa Kailai Hahn

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.

Investors need not fear, however, as Capital Economics says there will be plenty of room for this rally to continue.

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

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Ganesh Rao

Oil prices rose on Thursday on a weaker dollar after shaking off losses ahead of a weaker demand forecast for 2024.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for March delivery was up $1.46, or 1.91%, at $78.10. The Brent contract for April delivery traded at $82.83 a barrel, up $1.23 a barrel, or 1.51%.

Oil prices are finding support in a weakening dollar after January U.S. retail sales fell more than expected, said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group.

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

– Spencer Kimball

Many US companies have caught the attention of investors amid the artificial intelligence boom, but according to Morgan Stanley, the Asia-Pacific region has “underappreciated beneficiaries”.

Japan stands out, with 53% of companies seen as AI adopters – almost matching the US's 54%, Europe's 50% and Asia-Pacific ex-Japan's 39%.

Morgan Stanley's screens of AI users have a few names — implementers, adopters and both — that it says have “potential for outperformance over the next 12 months.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Weissen Don