Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Asian equities are pushing into record territory, with Japan's Nikkei two twenty-five trading well above seventy-one thousand six hundred fifty as technology shares lead the charge. The move extends a five-session winning streak, riding momentum from a broadly positive Wall Street session overnight, with Singapore's Straits Times Index also sitting at fresh all-time highs after six consecutive gains.
Shifting to geopolitics with real market consequence, the United States and Iran have signed a memorandum aimed at ending their conflict, and early signs of post-war recovery are beginning to surface across the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical energy chokepoints, now appears on a path toward stabilization — a development that commodity traders and shipping markets will be watching very closely.
And in the artificial intelligence space, Amazon is reportedly in early-stage talks to sell its custom Trainium chips to outside data center operators, a move that would put AWS in more direct competition with Nvidia in the merchant chip market. Nvidia investors are taking note — if Amazon can monetize its silicon externally, the competitive dynamics around AI infrastructure spending could shift meaningfully heading into two thousand twenty-six.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
